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AN ADDRESS 



DELIVERED IN THE 



FIRST PARISH, BEVERLY, 

October 2, 1867, 



ON THE TWO-HUNDREDTH ANNIVERSARY OF 
ITS FORMATION. 



BY 

CHRISTOPHER T. THAYER. 



PubltsfjelJ bg Bcqutst of tijc Partsfj- 



[(^1876.^; 

BOSTON: 

NICHOLS AND NOYES, 

117, Washington Street. 

1868. 



CAMBRIDGE : 
PRESS OF JOHN WILSON AND SON. 



ADDRESS. 



My respected Friends and Auditors of this numerous 
Assembly, — As I saw this bright and genial October sun rise 
from its ocean bed yonder, my thoughts being occupied with 
preparation for these anniversary services, I was ready to rec- 
ognize it as imaging Heaven's smile upon them. I could easily 
fancy it, in relation to them and their objects, illuming and 
bearing a benediction from the past, shedding a brilliant radi- 
ance on the present, and casting cheering beams into the future. 
And though here and there, even in the effulgence of this morn- 
ing's rays, as in all human experiences and anticipations, — 

" A cloud I might behold, 
Hope played on its edges and tinged them with gold." 

On this beautiful and chosen day we have met, to exchange 
mutual congratulations, and to indulge meditations on the past, 
the present, and the future, which may befit the introduction of 
a new century, — the advent of the third century ia the life of 
this parish. That the occasion is one of no common interest, is 
attested by the large audience before me, composed not only of 
the parishioners and those more immediately concerned, but 
of others far and near who have afforded their countenance 
and sympathy. The mother church, the first in Salem, has 
here her representation, headed by one of her most able minis- 
ters, who at the same time is to be regarded as among her chief 
lay supporters and pillars, and whom I am most happy to re- 
gard as the friend of my youth, my life-long friend. The eldest 
daughter of this church, now more than a century and a half 



in age, the second in Beverly, is represented by various mem- 
bers, and especially by one with whom, as its pastor, I was for 
many years in public and private very cordially and agreeably 
associated. Representatives from all the other churches of the 
town the loving, and we trust beloved, mother hails at this time, 
and would gather them under her wings. One sadly I miss, 
— the lately deceased pastor of the Dane-street Church, the 
theologian, the scholar, the Christian gentleman, bearing a name 
and title familiar and dear in this parish, and in a much wider 
circle, — Dr. Abbot, with whom for more than twenty years I 
was intimately and happily connected in social intercourse, 
and in educational, reformatory, and other public concerns ; and 
whose heart, however he might differ from us in faith or mode, 
I am sure would have been, rather I would say may be, Avith 
you and me to-day. 

I could have wished that it might have been committed to 
some one abler and worthier to meet the demands of this occa- 
sion. The invitation to do so came to me when not quite in 
my usual health and strength, and when other engagements left 
me but brief space for complying with it. But coming as it did, 
with the unanimous vote of the parish to which I had so long, 
and so pleasantly to myself at least, sustained the pastoral re- 
lation, and accompanied with the expressed wish of the present 
pastor, it had to me the force of a mandate which I could not 
hesitate to obey. I confess also the desire to lay one more 
offering, humble though it be, on this altar, at which my early 
freshness and vigor were consecrated to the service of this an- 
cient and honorable religious society. 

I call it ancient, though we well know that is a compara- 
tive term. When we look at the peoples, nations, institutions, 
structures of the old, and even of the new world ; when we 
see the splendid cathedrals in which our ancestors worshipped 
before they left their dear native land, and in which their fore- 
fathers for centuries had worshipped ; when, as I have seen, 
plants and flowers are gathered from walls, such as those of the 
cathedral at Cologne, that for hundreds of years have been in 
building and not yet completed, — plants nourished and caused 



to flourish and bud and bloom by literally the dust of ages ; 
when at St. Peter's in Rome we go down to the base, and ex- 
plore the foundations on which a former temple had long rested, 
before the present, the most magnificent of modern times, was 
erected upon them ; and when, further on, we gaze at the 
wonderful ruins of Piestum, standing in solitary grandeur and 
massive proportions, yet steadily crumbling under the inevitable 
touch of decay, — we are reminded at once of the period when 
time had a beginning, and of that when it shall be no more : 
from such instances alone, we feel how comparatively brief are 
two centuries, even though they do cover the lives of six gen- 
erations of men. But when we consider what is included in 
these last two, — those who have lived and acted therein, their 
institutions, revolutions, works, whether for good or evil ; and 
how in this region the small seed here sown has grown and 
fructified, and that the little one has become thousands and mil- 
lions, and before this century closes may be an hundred millions, 
— we realize, it may be imperfectly, that as — 

" One glorious hour of crowded life 
Is worth an age without a name," — 

so it is grand and glorious to live within a space, longer or 
shorter be it rated, in which so much has been dared, ex- 
perienced, and accomplished. And as wisdom consisteth not 
in length of days or years, so it is not the dim, hoar-frosted, 
irrevocable past, but the ages in which the greatest advances 
have been made in physical, social, intellectual, moral, and 
religious culture, by which true and real antiquity is to be 
measured. 

I have termed our society honorable, as well as ancient. Such 
indeed I regard it. When I think of the noble character of the 
men and women by whom it was formed and has been sustained, 
my heart swells with veneration and gratitude toward them ; and 
I could hardly say which of the emotions predominates. Its 
founders, so far as I can learn from its records and from contem- 
poraneous history, were all honorable men. The two who took 
the lead in its formation were cast in no common mould, were 



of nature's nobility. These were Roger Conant and Thomas 
Lothrop, — the former styled, in the language of their day, " a 
prudent, pious, and worthy gentleman ; " and the latter, " a godly 
and courageous commander." Conant may in truth be consid- 
ered the patriarch, not only of this parish, but of this region 
and the whole Massachusetts colony. Born in England, he 
came over, in the prime of his manhood, to the then infant 
settlement at Plymouth, entirely willing to carry on the " wilder- 
ness work " which had there been commenced, — fully prepared 
to share the privations, trials, and struggles that attended its 
beginning. Soon finding, however, that he differed in important 
respects, or at least those so deemed, from the Plymouth colo- 
nists, he resolved on a change of residence. The main point 
of difference was, that, while they were Separatists, — deter- 
mined to wholly separate from the English Church, even to 
abolishing the celebration of Christmas, — he was bent on free- 
ing it of existing errors and corruptions, and adhering to its sup- 
port. The element of his character thus revealed, — that of 
mingled conservatism and liberality, — let me say by the way, 
runs as a golden thread, and vibrates like a delicate, melodious 
string, through the entire history of this parish. That such 
should have been the case, it is not unreasonable to ascribe in 
no small measure to the spirit by which its chief founder was 
distinguished and actuated, and which would seem to have left its 
impress on his own and many succeeding generations. From 
Plymouth he went to Nantasket, now Hull, in Boston Bay ; but, 
after a brief stay tliere, he was appointed to act as governor of a 
station established by an English company at Gloucester harbor, 
Cape Ann, for fishing and trade. While discharging faithfully 
the duties of this office, he evinced singular wisdom and power of 
conciliation in the adjustment of difficulties that had arisen be- 
tween some of his own company and another party headed by the 
celebrated warrior. Miles Standish, and which seriously threat- 
ened to terminate in bloodshed. Meanwhile he had coasted up 
and down the beautiful south shore of the Cape ; agreeing, no 
doubt, with Captain John Smith of Virginia memory, that it was 
the " paradise of all these parts." It has indeed been justly com- 



pared to some of the fine points on the Mediterranean. The 
view from the height above Mingo's beach bears a striking 
resembhince to that from Cicero's villa on the sea at Mola di 
Gaeta. Smith's first impression certainly receives a full in- 
dorsement from the prevailing current of taste and fashion. 

Having met with some disasters, and regarding his position 
as one of temporary and commercial expediency, Conant decided 
to locate farther up the bay. The location on which he fixed 
is the neck of land on the south-west point of Beverly Harbor. 
To this he was induced, perhaps, by the considerations which 
are said to have influenced the first settlers of Boston, — that 
being peninsular, and connected with the mainland by a narrow 
isthmus, they might be the better protected from bears, wolves, 
and mosquitoes. And yet even now bears of some sort invade 
State Street, and exult or moan, as their case may be ; and 
wolves, though possibly in sheep's clothing, may be found in 
Beacon Street, — and fortunate are the inhabitants who are ex- 
empt from the buzz and sting of the insects last named. In 
the autumn of 1626, he, with his little band, numbering not 
more than thirty in all, came, landing (tradition has it) on the 
rock west of the southerly end of Essex Bridge. Geologists 
term the stone " metamorphic," and find on it the marks of no 
less than eleven volcanic eruptions. Well — and with lio irrev- 
erence surely — might we wish that the almighty Being, who 
in his wonder-working caused them, had, as a twelfth signature 
of his divine power, aflfixed the very footprints of the worthy 
company that first stepped on that rock, to make here their 
permanent abode. The rock of Plymouth, on which the fore- 
fathers landed, must ever retain its prominence, be, — as it Averc, 
the corner-stone of New England. It has been facetiously 
called our Blarney-stone. But for ever holy and hallowed will 
be the spot where first the Pilgrim fathers trod. Do not both 
that I have named, the one on the south and the other on the 
north shore of Massachusetts Bay, alike typify the solid founda- 
tions of learning, religion, and character, on which our Com- 
monwealth is built ? Literally, as well as metaphorically, may 
it be said to have been founded on a rock. Conant's principal 

2 



8 

companions in thus establishing himself were John Wooclberry, 
John Balch, and Peter Palfrey. I take great pleasure in 
recognizing in the last name that of an ancestor of John G. 
Palfrey, who, by his efforts in Congress and his writings, did so 
much to expose, cripple, and eventually destroy the " slave- 
power," and by his literary and professional career, and especially 
his History of New England, has so illustrated and adorned her 
historic annals. As the acknowledged leader in this new enter- 
prise, Conant immediately and with characteristic energy set 
about organizing his little colony. Scarcely, however, was this 
arduous labor begun, when an unexpected and trying emergency 
arose. An Episcopalian clergyman, Lyford, who had ministered 
to the settlers at Cape Ann, and afterwards, on the breaking-up 
of that settlement, to those of them whom he accompanied 
hither, having received a pressing invitation to remove to Vir- 
ginia, decided on himself accepting it, and also strongly urged 
all the other colonists at Naumkeag, as this region was then 
called, to join him in so doing, which would have involved the 
entire uprooting of the settlement here commenced. Some, a 
few only, influenced largely by severity of climate, by dread of 
Indian hostility, of famine, and many and great privations, yielded 
to his persuasions. But on Conant (says Phippen's interesting 
and able sketch of him and his associates, styled " Old Planters," 
in the publications of the Essex Institute) they fell powerless, 
like arrows on a rock. It was then, indeed, that he assumed 
the attitude and bearing of a Christian hero ; saying in sub- 
stance, if not in so many terms, " Go every one of you that 
will. Though all else forsake, I will not forsake. Here is my 
foot planted ; and here, God willing, it shall remain. Pleasant 
are the places on which our lines have fallen. Desert though 
they now be, yet shall they rejoice and blossom as the rose. 
Here, on this spot, will I watch and wait ; assured that if you, 
one and all, depart, a larger and goodlier company will be 
gathered on these shores. Equally sure am I, that here the 
true and everlasting gospel shall be preached and propagated, 
and a pure and living church established ; that here shall be 
founded an asylum for the persecuted and oppressed every- 



9 

where ; here the seeds of civil and religious liberty be sown, to 
spring up and flou:rish in rich luxuriance ; and here a way be 
opened for the advent of a great, free, prosperous, and happy 
people." 

Toward the end of the summer of 1628, John Endicott ar- 
rived with what, in that day of small things, seemed a numerous 
company, and which, together with the previous residents, 
swelled the whole population to upwards of a hundred persons. 
Timely and valuable as was this acquisition of numbers, charac- 
ter, and resources, Conant immediately found himself involved 
in further and serious difficulties. With the new-comers came 
the intelligence that he was required by the proprietors in Eng- 
land, who had shortly before been re-organized, to relinquish his 
office into other hands. On this being announced, a storm of 
indignation burst forth that shook to its base the colony, still 
unsettled and insecure, struggling for mere existence, in dubious 
infancy that might result in life or death. His old companions 
and followers were reluctant, nay totally unwilling, to have their 
tried, trusted, and beloved leader thus summarily superseded. 
For a long time the controversy between the respective parties 
was warm and violent, so that Endicott was not, till nine months 
after his arrival, inaugurated as governor. That it did not 
proceed further, and reach extremes, is to be ascribed to the 
intelligence and high worth of their heads. Especially was it 
owing to the practical good sense, the mild temper, and genuine 
magnanimity of Conant, that an amicable adjustment was ef- 
fected, and graver consequences were averted. And, as a 
memorial of this happy and auspicious result, at the suggestion, 
it is supposed, of the revered and sainted Francis Higginson, 
the Hebrew name Salem, signifying " City of Peace," was given 
to the place, now become historical, being well known in this 
and other countries, and counting by scores its namesakes scat- 
tered over all parts of our land. 

Active and efficient as he was in securing this desirable con- 
summation, he was not less so in supporting the new government. 
The " frame-house " he had built at Gloucester was, we may 
presume with his consent and co-operation, taken down, and 



10 

carried to vSalem, for the gubernatorial residence, a portion of 
which is still standing on the north-east corner of Washington 
and Church Streets. Waiving his Episcopalian partialities, if 
such yet remained, he, with others Avho joined him in form- 
ing this parish, was prominent among the founders of the 
First in Salem, — the first Independent Congregational Church 
gathered in America ; that of Plymouth having been organized 
on the other side of the ocean. He joined with Endicott in 
extending a cordial welcome ta Governor John Winthrop, when, 
in the summer of 1630, he arrived with his numerous fleet, 
bringing a large accession to the population of the province, 
and having with him the London Company's charter, Avith full 
power to administer it ; that being thus transferred to our own 
shores, planted on our soil, and destined to undergo various 
modifications, till it should grow into the magnificent tree of 
liberty, from which have been and are to be gathered so rich 
fruits, and whose leaves shall be for the healing, peace, joy of 
all nations. Under Winthrop's and succeeding administrations, 
Conant held several offices of trust and importance, — such as 
deputy to the first General Court in 1634, and long afterward 
a member of the Land Board and justice of the Quarter Court, 
— besides taking a deep and active interest, individually and 
oflB.cially, in town and ecclesiastical affairs. 

It was in 1630 that he and a few others passed over to 
form a permanent settlement on this — then known as Bass 
River — side ; which they did on a line extending from the 
inner harbor to the cove next below, and in the very year 
in which the metropolis of our Commonwealth and of New 
England was founded. Associated with him in this undertaking 
were John Balch, John and William Woodberry, by the last of 
whom he was joined, nearly forty years later, in rearing this 
Christian church. The two brothers of the name of Woodberry 
have ever since been numerously and honorably represented by 
their descendants here and elsewhere. Having, with four other 
original settlers, received from the town of Salein a grant of 
two hundred acres of land each at the head of Bass River, 
Conant soon removed thither, and there passed the remainder 



11 

of his protracted life, being engaged in agricultural pursuits 
when not occupied with public duties. His last appearance in 
public was at the head of a petition for a change of the name 
of this town, when he was more than eighty years of age. It 
is given in full in Stone's valuable History of Beverly, and is, 
in view of his advanced age, and the scenes through which he 
had passed, peculiarly touching. Its date is May 28, 16T1, 
less than three years after the town was incorporated and named. 
He addressed it "to the honored General Court, consisting of 
Magistrates and Deputies," commencing with an affecting allu- 
sion to his early experience as a colonist, thus : — 

" The humble petition of Roger Couant, of Bass river alias Bev- 
erly, who hath bin a planter in New England fortie years and upwards, 
being one of the first, if not the very first, that resolved and made 
good my settlement under in matter of plantation with my family in 
this colouy of the Massachusets Bay, and have bin instrumental both 
for the founding and carriing on of the same ; and when in the in- 
fancy thereof it was in great hazard of being deserted, I was a means, 
through grace assisting me, to stop the flight of those few that then 
were heere with me, and that by my utter deuiall to goe away with 
them, who would have gone either for England, or mostly for Vir- 
ginia, but thereupon stayed to the hazard of our lives." 

His first reason for a change of name is " the great dislike and 
discontent of many of our people for this name of Beverly, because 
(we being but a small jjlace) it hath caused on us a constant nick- 
name of Beggarly ; " which sounds singularly enough to such as, 
having had opportunity for judging, believe with me that no pop- 
ulation of equal numbers and duration has enjoyed a larger share 
of substantial comfort and prosperity than has fallen to the lot 
of them who, from the millionnaire to those of humblest means, 
here were born or have lived. His second ground for the al- 
teration he petitioned for was, that all of the first settlers then 
surviving having come " from the western part of England, 
desire this western name of Budleigh, a market town in Devon- 
shire, and neere unto the sea as we are here in this place, and 
where myself was born." 



12 

I will not forbear quoting one further sentence from the peti- 
tion, as true as it was creditable to him : — 

" I never yet made sute or request unto the GeQerall Court for the 
least matter, tho' I think I might as well have done, as many others 
have, who have obtained much without hazard of life, or preferring 
the public good before their own interest, which, I praise God, I have 
done." 

The Legislature wisely and well declined the petitioner's 
prayer, but instead of a name provided a much more real and 
valuable substitute ; granting him, in consideration of his long 
service and great worth, two hundred acres of land. Much 
as we may respect the so natural and deep feeling with which, 
in the evening of life, his thoughts recurred to fatherland and 
his native place, we should be excused from equally admir- 
ing the taste which would have had the name he desired in 
exchange for the good old euphonious one, under which this 
town was incorporated, which it has hitherto borne, and I trust 
will ever bear. The latter was derived from a town, once the 
residence of John de Beverly, so long ago as the beginning of 
the eighth century of our era. It is noted for its ancient and 
grand minster, has a population of several thousands, and is 
pleasantly situated, amid beautiful surrounding scenery, in the 
eastern part of England. In visiting it, I saw much to interest, 
all the more from the associations I carried with me from its 
namesake. Tourists from this quarter cannot but be struck, and 
have somewhat of a home-feeling awakened, as in travelling 
through that section of country they meet and are saluted with 
familiar names of places, and find themselves in quick succes- 
sion, for instance, in Cambridge, Boston, Lynn, and Beverly. 
While we may congratulate ourselves that the aged and venera- 
ble Conant failed to deprive the town of this last good name, 
we may rejoice, that, after the attempt, he enjoyed for years a 
boon far better than any thing merely nominal ; not consisting 
only or chiefly of lands bestowed in acknowledgment of his 
long-tried fidelity in the great work he undertook, and to the 
important trusts committed to him, — but rather in his own 



13 

calm, even temper, and kindly, devout, Christian spirit ; in a 
consciousness of duty, public and private, bravely, diligently 
performed, in the respect and love by which he was universally 
attended and followed. And when his long and useful earthly 
career, eked out to its eighty-ninth year, was brought to a close, 
and he was summoned to go up higher, there was mourning 
sincere and deep for him, in many a happy home, secure and 
flourishing ; where, previously to his coming, untamed and un- 
tutored savages, alone of all human beings, had their abode, 
and hunted and warred, roaming through a desert and dreary 
wild, and where before him no civilized or Christian man had 
dwelt. Well may we, in view of this imperfect sketch, borrow 
an appellation from the language of apostolic time and a later day, 
and denominate him the angel and patron-saint of this church 
and parish. Of his leading associate in their establishment 
(Lothrop), I could not, in view of his sincere, upright, and honor- 
able character, and restrained no less than moved by that, speak 
in terms of extravagant eulogy. Brave and gentle, generous and 
just, confiding, yet cautious and wise, of large estate for the 
time, bountifully as skilfully administered, never sparing of his 
own exertions, but always ready for every good word or Avork, 
he had a rare and remarkable hold on the confidence and affec- 
tion of the community in which he lived. Not sustaining in 
strictness the paternal relation, he bore the best attributes, sym- 
pathies, and adornments of the parental heart, — thus resem- 
bling him who, having discharged in private the duties of a 
loving and faithful parent to children not his own, came at length 
to be universally acknowledged the Father of his country. He 
was a father of the fatherless, the widow's friend and support, 
and the helper of any who had none else to abet or plead their 
cause. 

As a military man, he had what seems, amid the hardships, 
perils, severities, and fierce conflicts of war, an unnatural com- 
bination of qualities, which, if seldom, are sometimes seen, — of 
gentleness and bravery, of stern, inflexible purpose, with kind- 
ness and generosity, of unwavering determination with tcn- 
derest sympathy, of mild forbearance with exalted courage, of 



14 

persevering, unfaltering energy, with true magnanimity. Says 
one who, from thorough investigation, could be relied on, " Pie 
was the friend of all. I know not where to find a more perfect 
union of the hero and the Christian ; of all that is manly and 
chivalrous, with all that is tender, benevolent, and devout." 

His house was not only the abode of a liberal hospitality, but 
an asylum for the orphan and the distressed. As objects of his 
bounty arose and multiplied, his dwelling as his heart seemed 
to expand ; and he who otherwise had been solitary was, in the 
exercise of his kindly spirit, surrounded by a numerous family. 
Among them who shared liis fostering care was a younger sis- 
ter, Ellen, whom he brought with him on liis return from a visit 
to England, who fulfilled his fondest wishes, and to whom he 
was ever afterward as both father and elder brother. She 
became the second wife of the veteran schoolmaster, Ezekiel 
Cheever, who taught for more than seventy years, — the first 
part being distributed in terms of twelve, eleven, and nine 
years, respectively, at New Haven, Ipswich, and Charlestown ; 
and the last thirty-eight passed at the head of the Boston Latin 
School, in which capacity he served, with harness on, when he 
died, and his own long account was rendered in to the Master 
of all, from whom — if we may venture the surmise — was 
heard the plaudit, " Well done, good and faithful servant." 
E[is powers were wonderfully retained to the end. The cele- 
brated Cotton Mather, celebrated for his learning and lack of 
wisdom, for virtues that he had and virtues that he had not, 
whose entire course Avas eccentric, partaking more of the centri- 
fugal than the centripetal, says, in grateful admiiation and 
deserved eulogy on the decease of Cheever, — 

" Although he had usefully spent his life among children, yet he 
was not become twice a child. In the great work of bringing sons 
to be men, he was my master seven and thirty years ago ; so long 
ago, that I must even mention my father's tutor for one of them. He 
was a Christian of the old fashion, — an old New-England Chris- 
tian ; and I may tell you, that was as venerable a sight as the world, 
since the days of primitive Christianity, has ever looked upon. He 
lived, as a master, the term which has been for above three thousand 
years assigned for the life of a man. 



15 

" He lived, and to vast age no illness knew, 
Till Time's scythe, waiting for him, rusty grew. 
He lived and wrought ; his labors were immense, 
But ne'er declined to preterperf'ect tense." 

To him, and such as he was, is it greatly owing that the school- 
house was here, from the first, reared by the side of the house of 
worship ; that the teacher's profession has come to be regarded no 
less honorable than useful: and that "good learning" — a phrase 
signifying the promotion of all that is true, great, and good — 
has been current with us from the beginning ; been made, as it 
were, the motto, and its meaning and spirit infused into all of 
our civil and literary institutions. 

Lothrop having, in early manhood, emigrated from England, 
settled first in what is now the city of Salem ; but, a few years 
after, he received a grant of land on this shore, near the Cove, 
where is a continuation of the most populous part of the town, 
and there fixed his residence for the remainder of his life. 
There he lived for about forty years, a model of fidelity to all 
his public and private relations. Nothing of the kind can ex- 
ceed the charming picture of his domestic life which has been 
handed down to us, and been of late most skilfully and appre- 
ciatively drawn. To his ever-ready sympathy as a man, a neigh- 
bor, counsellor, friend, there is abundant witness. Various, 
almost innumerable, were the calls made on him for advice, for 
consolation, for attesting, drafting, and executing wills, for ap- 
praisal of estates, as trustee and guardian. For several years, 
he was deputy to the General Court ; first from Salem, then 
from this town, and a selectman of it all the time after its incor- 
poration till his death. This last office was sometimes dignified 
with the title of " townsman ; " and comprehending, as it then 
did, the powers and duties of overseer of the poor, assessor of 
taxes, surveyor of highways, and police judge, without speci- 
fying others, we may conclude that it was no sinecure, and 
that its 'incumbent might have been entitled also the " man-of- 
all-work." 

His interest and activity in ecclesiastical, were no less than in 
secular aflfairs. Soon after his arrival, when quite a young man, 

3 



16 



he became a member of the Salem Church, with which he con- 
tinued for a long time to worship and commune. When, in 
consequence of the increased population on this side, and the 
inconveniences of distance and crossing the intervening ferry, it 
was felt that new accommodations must be provided for the wor- 
shippers resident here, he took an active part in all the measures 
which resulted first in temporary arrangements for religious ser- 
vices, and ultimately — though not till about twenty years after 
their inception — in the complete organization of this society. 
Toward its establishment and primitive prosperity, his character, 
so high, pure, trusted, efficient, and altogether worthy, greatly 
contributed, especially connected as it was in the general es- 
teem with that of Conant, his elder companion in the under- 
taking. The characters of the two, taken together, constituted 
a tower of strength, and an indubitable pledge for the success, 
the stability, and spiritual growth of the embryo parish. That 
when absent on distant expeditions, and even amid the din 
and stress of war, he was not unmindful of his parochial rela- 
tions, and of the ties, religious as well as social, which bound 
him to his home, is evinced by the fact, that on his return from 
the attack of St. Johns and Port Royal, where he held an im- 
portant command, and the capture of which he materially aided, 
he brought with him from the latter place, now Annapolis, and 
presented to the parish, a bell, which had been in use on a friary 
there ; which was the first of five successive ones that here, by 
their vibrations, have summoned to united devotion, have tolled 
the knell of departed spirits vastly outnumbering you who sur- 
vive, and, in tones scarcely less solemn, marked from day to day 
the departing hours ; have sounded out triumphs of peace and 
Avar ; have intoned, as it were, great events, joyful or sad, wliich 
have occurred within the last two centuries. 

But the end of all this life of activity, energy, and usefulness 
was drawing on. A fearful tragedy was at hand, in which he 
Avas to act the most conspicuous part, to suffer, and fall a sacri- 
fice. King Philip, foremost of Indian chiefs in this quarter, 
subtle as powerful, had roused his own and neighboring tribes 
to the determination of desperate warfare, — of nothing less than 



17 

a life or death struggle between them and the colonists. Con- 
sternation, wide-spread and terrible, prevailed. No sense of 
security, but, rather, awful dread of overhanging peril, pervaded 
every dwelling and hamlet. Tomahawk and scalping-knife ; 
fire-arms borrowed by savages from their civilized neighbors, and 
plied with a deadly precision ; hopeless captivity, or deliverance 
from it solely by a cruel death ; the torch of conflagration and 
the devouring flame ; tortures indescribable, and hardly to be 
conceived, worse than death, and making it welcome, — these all, 
and more than these, were elements of the cup of horrors, of 
which our ancestors of those trying times were called to drink. 
Of that cup, the people of my native place, then amounting to 
between two and three hundred, drank to the very dregs. 
" Within the borders of New England," says her historian, 
" there is no more attractive spot than the site of the town of 
Lancaster," Mass. It was a favorite resort and abode of the 
Indians of its vicinity. Their principal village, the centre 
around which their wigwams were gathered, was on a gentle, 
southerly, sunny slope, at the fork of the two branches of the 
Nashua River, most favorable for fishing and hunting, while 
the surrounding rich alluvions afforded ample fields for the cul- 
tivation of Indian corn. That village was within the bounds of 
my paternal estate ; and there, down to a recent period, have 
been discovered relics of the aboriginal inhabitants. So, near 
by, and now included in the acres standing under the same 
name, is the site of the garrison, whose inmates, on the tenth of 
February, 1676, were either ruthlessly killed, or borne away 
miserable captives. Among the latter was Mrs. Howlandson, 
wife of the first minister of the town, who, wounded and bleed- 
ing, Avas carried off, with a sick and dying child, but, after three 
months of horrid experience, restored to her husband and 
friends. Her narrative of that experience — so graphic, so cir- 
cumstantial, so descriptive of the modes of savage life — was 
among my earliest readings, and left an impression vivid and 
never to be effaced. I remember well how that, together with 
local traditions and associations, fired my youthful imagination, 
haunted my thoughts and fancies by day and my dreams by 



18 

night. A village sacked, fired, destroyed, all but annihilated ; 
men, women, and children murdered, captives, tormented, or 
dispersed to wander houseless and homeless, — such was the 
terrible result of savage hostilities in my birthplace, and such 
the image they had left behind. 

When, the summer previous to the scenes •! have thus faintly 
sketched, a cry came from the remoter settlements of Brookfield 
and on the Connecticut River, that similar perils and calamities 
were impending over them, there were not wanting, in these the 
more populated portions, the men to lend a helping hand, who, 
instead of shrinking from the emergency, were, and showed 
themselves to be, fully up to the crisis. There was Major Simon 
Willard, of highly honorable descent and family, most honored 
in his own deserts, the first of the name in our annals, — settler 
of Concord, and afterwards resident of Lancaster and Groton, — 
the legislator, magistrate, judge, referee, universally confided in ; 
next to the commander-in-chief commanding the militia of the 
province ; Avith a line of descendants that would do honor to any 
name, among whom were two presidents of Harvard College, 
one of whom was among the most worthy and honored ministers 
of your own parish. He at seventy years of age, and Lothrop 
a chief captain under him at sixty-five, — such was the stern 
stuff of which the fathers of that day were composed, and such 
their real calibre, — buckled on their armor, girded themselves 
for the fight, and went forth to the battle, in which the fates of 
not the frontier alone, but the entire New-England people, 
seemed involved. Willard, by a forced march, and by his 
bravery and military skill, raised the siege, and relieved the 
beleaguered garrison of Brookfield. Meantime, Lothrop — who 
had raised a company of a hundred men in his county, that, from 
their being of the young and most promising, might well be 
styled its " flower," and who, from his varied experience and 
tried courage and valor, was of course to take command — 
pressed on, and joined the forces under Willard at Hadley. 
Being charged by the latter with the transport of supplies 
of provisions from Deerfield, he with his company was on the 
route thence, and, feeling no apprehension of immediate danger, 



19 

they had laid aside their arms, and paused to regale themselves 
from the clusters of grapes which hung by the wayside, when 
the coveted fruit turned to ashes in their grasp, and its sweet- 
ness was changed to the gall and bitterness of death. Volleys 
from hundreds of savages in ambush were poured upon them, 
like lightning from a clear sky ; their gallant and beloved com- 
mander fell at the outset ; they fought bravely, as best they 
could with that pall of death over them ; but few survived to 
tell the tale, M'hich, from that time, gave to the little stream 
they were crossing, which proved to so many "the narrow stream 
of death," the sad name of Bloody Brook. 

This catastrophe sent a thrill of terror and dismay through all 
the New-England colonies. Especially did the news of it come 
with appalling force to this county, from which its choicest 
flowers, " all culled out of its towns," and blooming so lately in 
manly beauty and strength, had been thus suddenly cut down 
and withered, as by an untimely, killing frost. Throughout its 
length and breadth, scarcely was there a village or hamlet left 
unscathed by this great calamity, — 

" No flock, however watched and tended, 
But one dead lamb was there." 

More particularly, and with stunning effect, did the blow fall 
here, where, beside several that were deeply lamented, the fallen 
chief was best known, and for that reason most respected, trusted, 
and loved. Writers at or near the time do but express the feel- 
ing generally prevalent, whether in wider or more restricted 
circles ; while they accumulate, almost without limit, the phrases 
descriptive of sorrow, agony, and horror, such as " a sad and 
awful providence," " a dismal and fatal blow," " a sadder rebuke 
of Providence than any thing that hitherto had been," " a black 
and fatal day," "the saddest that ever befell New England." 

We know full well, after the experience of the past few years 
of dread civil conflict, what it is to have the young, the brave, 
and excellent, the highly educated and refined, the flower of our 
chivalry, — and no more real chivalry has the world witnessed, — 
go forth with the holiest inspirations of freedom, of love of 



20 

country, of allegiance to duty and to God, leaving to the loving 
heart behind a heavy burden of anxieties and harrowing appre- 
hensions, — many of them, alas ! falling like the beauty of Israel 
on her high places, many of them numbered among the " unre- 
turning brave," buried where they fell, or returning, if at all, 
only on their shields. More than thirty of your number, includ- 
ing your minister, in that crisis thus went forth on land or sea : 
and, blessed be God ! the most of them returned in safety ; but 
some there are who are mourned, and will continue long to be 
deeply lamented, yet bequeathing the rich solace of their hav- 
ing beautifully and gloriously died for their country. Well, 
therefore, may Ave somewhat comprehend the sacrifices made by 
the early fathers, when, out of all proportion to any other drafts 
made on our population for service in war, they met the awful 
demands made upon them, and appreciate both the pain and the 
magnanimity with which they gave up their dearest and best to 
what they regarded their country's cause. Edward Everett, the 
Cicero of our country and age, whom the Head of the nation 
(our proto-martyr President, and Heaven grant he may be the 
last !) announced at his decease as our " first citizen," said, in 
conclusion of his eloquent address at the laying of the corner- 
stone of the Bloody-Brook monument, with his own peculiar 
felicity, "The 'Flower of Essex' shall bloom in undying re- 
membrance, as the lapse of time shall continually develop, in 
richer abundance, the fruits of what Avas done and suflTered by 
our fathers." 

I have dwelt thus long — longer perhaps than my space of 
time and your patience might properly allow — on the lives 
of the two men most prominent in the formation of this parish. 
Others there were well worthy of mention, and on whose quali- 
ties and worth I would gladly enlarge, that were instrumental 
in establishing it on a firm and durable basis. But, while 
omitting particular notice of them, let me for a few moments 
call your attention to the larger view, in which they also will 
be included, of the high privileges we enjoy, and the great 
obligations we owe, through the ancestors from whom we are 
descended, and the excellent of the earth by whom the founda- 



21 

tions of Church and State among us were securely laid. Not 
to name or enumerate the Plymouth worthies, but to limit our 
view to those who arrived within these waters, what a gathering 
of the true and faithful do we behold ! First came Conant and 
his company, of whom I need not further speak. Then fol- 
lowed the company of Endicott, the wise, upright, magnanimous, 
yet not devoid of human passions, as was shown when, fined 
forty shillings for a personal assault, he said, that, if the subject 
of it had been a better foe, he would have preferred to settle 
the difficulty on the spot by bodily conflict. Soon afterward 
came John Winthrop, the great and good, a master-builder in 
our edifice of state. Accompanying him were choice spirits, 
actuated by the highest motives, inspired by a sublime enthusiasm, 
not counting theii* lives dear, but encountering all perils, and 
ready to endure all sufferings, for conscience' sake. Among 
them was Lady Arabella Johnson, whose coming and fate fur- 
nish one of the most pathetic stories in all history or romance. 
High-born, accomplished, leaving a home of refinement and 
luxury, of high and wide privilege, " a paradise of plenty for a 
wilderness of wants," pining in health on the dreary and trying 
voyage, but never faltering in self-devotion and holy purpose, 
revived by the sweet-scented gales from these shores, but only 
stepping on them to find a grave, which, though marked by 
neither brass nor marble, is known to be almost within sight of 
the spot where we are assembled, and which, within a few 
weeks after her mortal part was consigned to it, was shared by 
her noble, devoted, and grief-stricken husband. They, and those 
that were with them, afford some of the grandest examples of 
Christian heroism, self-devotion, and pious trust. Baptized they 
were as by fire ; yet they were baptized, I fully believe, into a 
purer faith and a higher life than the world had before known. 
Their very names are redolent with the odor of sanctity ; though 
dead, they speak ; and, ever since they lived, an elevating and 
hallowing influence has, in this community at least, been exerted 
by their lives and characters. 

Much has been said and thought of the errors and defects of 
our forefathers. Doubtless they are chargeable with such, both 



22 

light and grave. Among the lighter we may reckon the contro- 
versy, conducted at the time with great and serious earnestness, 
concerning the wearing of veils by women at public worship. 
Roger Williams had taken the ground that they should always 
in divine service be worn. But John Cotton, one Sunday morn- 
ing, when this theory was apparently in the full tide of success, 
and practically adopted by the good women of Salem, preached 
against it with such cogency of argument and convincing power, 
that they all, with one accord, came out in the afternoon Avith 
unveiled faces and charms. It must be remembered, however, 
that every age has its peculiarities and trivialities, when viewed 
by succeeding ages ; and that our wisest and most charitable 
course is to judge the past as we would be judged by the future. 
Illiberality and exclusiveness have also been charged on our 
ancestors, and surely not without reason. They banished here- 
tics, hung Quakers, and permitted none but those of their own 
religious faith and fellowship to enjoy the right of suffrage, or 
be called freemen. As appears by the records of Essex County, 
Henry Herrick and his wife Edith were fined ten and eleven 
shillings, respectively (why the difference does not appear, un- 
less on the presumption that the man, as of old, was tempted 
by the woman), "for aiding and comforting," in this very town, 
" an excommunicated person, contrary to order." Yet it is to 
be considered, that the fathers regarded the society they founded ' 
here as a separate one, entitled to its own peculiar rights and 
privileges, and planted themselves especially on their favorite 
idea of a Christian Commonwealth. 

Great misapprehension, too, prevails regarding the laws they 
enacted. Some of them, clearly, were barbarous in their spirit 
and execution. Thus Phillip Ratcliffe was sentenced to be 
whipped, have his ears cut off, fined forty shillings, and be ban- 
ished from the colony, for uttering malignant and scandalous 
speeches against the government and church of Salem. Sentence 
passed on one William Andrews, a mere youth, was, that for 
conspiracy against his master's life he be whipped, — probably 
in no slight degree, — and then committed to the not usually 
tender mercies of slavery. Nevertheless, the " Body of Liber- 



23 

ties," the first code of laws adopted in New England, whose 
enactment dates back to the year 1641, was in some respects far 
in advance of its time. It was drafted by Nathaniel Ward, of 
Ipswich, author of " The Simple Cobbler of Agawam," Avho, 
before entering the ministry, had studied and practised law in 
England ; and a most honorable monument it is of his ability, 
learning, humaneness, and far-sighted sagacity. To man-stealing 
it affixed the foulest stigma, by subjecting it to the penalty of 
death. Whipping of wives by their husbands — which the 
English common law has allowed and justified almost, if not 
quite, to this day, the only trial under it being that of the 
occasion and degree of infiiction — Ward's code absolutely for- 
bade, with the single exception, that such correction should be 
resorted to only in self-defence ; and it made a near approach 
to the separation of Church and State, as now existing among 
us, by ordaining that no church censure should degrade or 
depose any man from civil dignity, office, or authority. Though 
bearing- traces of the times in which it was framed, and marked 
by peculiarities of the people for whom it was intended and to 
whom it was adapted, " it shows " (says one who had mastered 
it thoroughly in all its provisions and bearings) " that our an- 
cestors, instead of deducing all their laws from the books of 
jNIoses, established at the outset a code of fundamental prin- 
ciples, which, taken as a whole, for wisdom, equity, adaptation 
to the wants of their community, and a liberality of sentiment 
superior to the age in which it was written, may fearlessly chal- 
lenge comparison with any similar production, from Magna 
Charta itself to the latest Bill of Rights that has been put forth 
in Europe or America." 

Then, and above all, the fathers and founders of our churches 
and social state were inspired and actuated by a true, living, fer- 
vent, whole-souled devotion, — devotion to the heavenly Father's 
will, and the work given them to do. The very spirit of Christ, 
that consists in such devotion, and dwelt in him Avithout measure, 
was M'ith them, — shaded, it might be, by false theories and hu- 
man imperfections, yet was with them and in them abundantly. 
Faith in God, in his felt presence, in his benignant and supcrin- 

4 



24 

tending providence, that he would guide them to higher light 
and broader and better ends than had previously been attained, 
— this was their continual strong fortress. As a wall of fire 
it was around them, amid the trials, hardships, and perils to 
which they were exposed. Sustained and animated by that, 
they built better than they knew, achieved more than they pur- 
posed, rose to heights of usefulness and influence exceeding 
their loftiest aspirations. Their works do indeed follow them, 
and shall follow them, attended by the benedictions of count- 
less multitudes, in all coming ages. 

But I must hasten to the mention of particulars more directly 
connected with our parish history. Owing to the inconvenience 
of crossing by boat or of travel by land, and the increase of 
population being felt to justify the movement, initiatory steps 
were taken in 1649 for establishing separate worship on this side 
the river, — the people here still retaining, as a branch of the 
same vine, their connection with the Salem parish, and those of 
them that were communicants joining in the communion service 
with their brethren across the water. A proposition to this effect 
was at first refused, for what reason it does not precisely appear. 
Evidently there was no desire of either party to be rid of the 
other, since the union implied in the proposal was kept up with 
mutual interest and harmony for near a score of years after it 
was renewed and granted. The arrangement proposed was 
entered into the next year after its inception. No house of wor- 
ship was erected for the new congregation, till six years after- 
ward when one was built on or near the site of your vestry. 
What its materials, dimensions, and style were, cannot now be 
ascertained. Probably it exhibited some improvement in mate- 
rial at least, if not in other respects, on the first Boston meeting- 
house, that stood on the east corner of State and Devonshire 
Streets ; which was built a quarter century before, with mud 
walls and thatched roof, — though soon after, in consequence of 
a serious conflagration, it was ordered by the town that none 
should build there with thatched roofs or wooden chimneys. 
Modest, humble, and primitive in its construction and arrange- 
ments we may surely infer it was, when we read the records of 



25 

" liberty granted certain females wanting seats to build three at 
their own charge; " of two male members having " leave to make 
a seat at the north end of the pulpit ; " and Mrs. Hale, the min- 
ister's wife, permitted " liberty to make a seat where she now 
sitteth, it not being prejudicial to the rest;" that Mrs. Lothrop, 
no doubt from the high esteem in which she, together with her 
husband, was held, " had liberty to make a seat convenient by 
the chief pillar ; " that, it having been concluded to put up a gal- 
lery, the three parishioners contracting to do the work were to 
"have each of them a seat in the foreseat." So late as 1672, 
sixteen years after its erection, " it was agreed that the meeting- 
house be ceiled up to the wall-plates, rabitted, and the windows 
glazed." Yet this structure, humble as it was, less interesting 
far than the hillsides of Scotland, where the Covenanters assem- 
bled and worshipped, repulsive even to our modern notions of 
convenience and taste, was, notwithstanding, the cherished reli- 
gious home of many a chosen and pious soul, — a temple conse- 
crated in the hearts of simple-minded, true-hearted, devout men, 
women, and children, to the worship of the Father in sj^irit and 
truth. Beside this chief and highest purpose to Avhich it was 
devoted, in accord with their estimation of the school as an insti- 
tution second only to the church, our ancestors gathered there 
their youth, to be instructed in common, next to sacred, knowl- 
edge. There, also, they met from time to time, for the discreet, 
patriotic, and faithful ordering of their civil affairs ; not doubting, 
but profoundly believing, that civil government was to be intelli- 
gently, diligently, reverentially sustained, as being nothing less 
than the ordinance of God. It had, moreover, the affecting 
association, which belongs to so many of the churches of Old 
and New England, of bordering on the place of graves, where 
the mortal remains of near kindred and friends of the first wor- 
shippers reposed, where " the forefathers of the hamlet sleep," 
— your forefathers and mine. I say mine; for I trust you will 
not think it amiss for me to recur with satisfaction to my descent 
from Andrew Elliot, an emigrant from the west of England, 
early a member of this parish and church, the first town-clerk 
of Beverly ; who discharged many offices of distinction and 



26 

trust faithfully and through a long period, sharing extensively 
the approbation and confidence of his townsmen and the com- 
munity, and, besides his fair written records, leaving behind him 
the fairer record of his life. 

Before and after the erection of the first meeting-house, tem- 
porary ministerial supplies were obtained, among them two of 
the name of Hubbard as recorded, more correctly Hobart ; from 
one of whom the celebrated missionary, David Brainard, de- 
scended. Next came John Hale, who served here for three 
years previous to his being the regularly established pastor. He 
was a native of Charlestown, and graduated at Harvard College, 
when what is now called the venerable alma mater, the beloved 
mother of American colleges, and of so numerous and worthy — 
not to speak of the unworthy — sons, was comparatively in her 
infancy. He was the first of the eight who have here, on an 
average of more than a quarter century each, ministered in sacred 
things ; first of the six of them that enjoyed her fostering care ; 
while of the other two, not being myself one of them, I may be 
permitted to say that they have done no discredit, but greatly 
the reverse, to the highly flourishing and valuable institutions of 
Dartmouth and Amherst, at which, respectively, they had their 
early training. That all were what the fact of a collegiate edu- 
cation implies, — without assuming any thing more, — liberally 
educated, shows conclusively that here, from first to last, there 
has been no desire, design, or countenance of the divorce of 
learning from religion. • 

At length, the time seemed fully to have arrived for the 
ripened fruit to drop off, for the branch to be lopped from 
the parent tree and grafted on an independent stock. A score 
of years had passed since the separation had been agitated and 
been in progress, which, to us of this fast age, seems exceeding 
moderation. JNIoreover, it was felt by the residents on this side, 
not only that their convenience would be consulted, their attend- 
ance on the ordinances rendered more sure and uniform, and the 
edification therefrom better promoted, by a distinct parochial 
organization, but that in John Hale they had found " the able 
and approved teacher" whom the permission allowing them to 



27 

set up separate worship authorized and required them to obtain, 
whose services as their pastor they desired to secure. Accord- 
ingly, this petition, headed by Koger Conant, was presented, 
signed by seventy-three persons, of whom two-thirds were church 
members : " We, whose names are underwritten, the brethren 
and sisters on Bass-River side, do present our desires to the rest 
of the church in Salem, that, with their consent, we and our 
children may be a church of ourselves ; which we also present 
unto jNIr. Hale, desiring him to join with us and to be our pas- 
tor, with the approbation of the rest of the church." On receipt 
of this petition, an appointed day, " by the consent of the breth- 
ren both on that side of the river and here at the town, was 
publicly observed as a day of solemn fasting and prayer, to seek 
unto God for his direction and presence in such a weighty mat- 
ter." After mature deliberation on the subject so seriously 
viewed and acted upon, at a meeting held in 1667, July 4th (a 
day, Avhen regarded from our stand-point, not inauspicious, 
though not then, as now, associated with ideas of either ecclesi- 
astical or civil independence), " there was a unanimous consent 
of the brethren present unto their desire, only it was left to the 
sacrament day after, when in the fullest church assembly the con- 
sent of the rest of the church was signified by their vote, lifting 
up their hands ; and so they have their liberty to be a church of 
themselves, only they continue members until their being a 
church : " with the added benediction, which doubtless was con- 
curred in by all concerned, — " The Lord grant his gracious 
presence with them ! " 

They were not slow to adopt measures for fulfilling the only 
remaining condition on which the liberty of separation was 
made to rest, — which was the thing itself they desired and had 
sought, — namely, a separate church organization. Yet they 
did so in no spirit of alienation or opposition ; rather that of 
those who, having passed the period of guardianship and pupil- 
age, go forth from the shelter of the parental roof with alac- 
rity and redoubled energies to the new spheres of duty and 
responsibility Providence has assigned them, yet without any 
diminution of filial and fraternal feeling, of tender, generous, 



28 

and sacred sympathy, toward the loving and beloved ch'cle left 
behmd ; those sentiments and emotions, on the contrary, being 
quickened, heightened, intensified, when the time arrives for 
relinquishing the constant and endeared intercourse of the native 
home. 

An invitation in due form was now extended to Mr. Hale to 
be the pastor of the parish and church then to be organized- 
Considering it was virtually a triennial candidateship and ex- 
perience of each other that had been gone through, — surpassing 
in duration a large proportion of the ministries of these degen- 
erate days, — the invitation cannot but be regarded as highly 
honorable to both parties. His answer breathes a spirit of so 
calm and devout deliberation, such self-distrust, yet moral cour- 
age and trust in God, such self-devotion to the gospel and to 
the people whose religious teacher, guide, and friend he had 
so long been, under circumstances, some of which were singular 
and trying, that I am induced to recite it as it stands, — a relic 
no way discreditable to his memory, and curious as indicative 
of the modes of thought and expression peculiar to his time. 
It was as follows : — 

" When I look at the weight (^f the work you call me unto, of 
which Paul cried out, ' Who is sufficient unto these things ? ' I then 
looking upon my manifold infirmities and indisposition of spirit, 
then unto so many discouragements ; but, when I duly consider the 
Lord's sovereignty over me and all-sufficiency for my support, I 
desire, when I see his Avork and call, to say with Isaiah, ' Here I am : 
send me.' And in particular when I observe the remarkable provi- 
dences of God in bringing me hither and paving out our way hither- 
to, and the room the Lord hath made for me in your hearts (which 
I acknowledge with thankfulness to God and yourselves), I also look 
at the call of God in the present call, as a call to me ; being the more 
confirmed herein by the concurrence of our apprehensions, which 
hath appeared in those things we had occasion to confer about, con- 
cerning our entering into and proceeding with church affairs, which 
I hope the Lord will enable me to practise accordingly. Wherefore, 
while you Avalk according to God's order of the gospel and in the 
steadfastness of the faith of Christ, and I see that with a good con- 
science and freedom of spirit I can carry on my work, and discharge 



29 

my duty to God and maa and these that are under my care, accord- 
ing to the respective relation I may bear unto them, so long- as the 
Lord is calling me to labor in this part of his vineyard, I desire to 
give up myself to the Lord and his service in the work of the minis- 
try in this place ; requesting you to strive together with me in your 
prayers for me, that it may redound to his glory, the edifying of 
every soul that shall dwell amongst us, and for our joyful account in 
the day of Christ's appearance. By me, John Hale." 

A pastor having thus been procured, the next object in view 
was to organize a church. For it should be understood, that 
the church strictly speaking, — that is, as composed of church- 
members, — had then a potential voice and a predominance of 
numbers and influence rarely if ever to be met with in our 
congregational churches at the present day. All along, as we 
trace the negotiations preceding the separation of ours from the 
parent society, Ave perceive it to be implied that the church was 
every thing, the parish little or nothing. This is shown by the 
mere name agreed on for the new body to be formed, — which 
was " the Church of Christ at Bass River in Salem," — no men- 
tion being made of the parish ; though that may have been 
included in the designation, and may have been understood as 
resulting from the previous maintenance of separate worship. 
Fourteen months after their formation, the town was incorpo- 
rated, and thenceforth they were called and known as the First 
Parish and Church in Beverly ; the records and doings of the 
town and parish, as was generally the case where only one 
parish existed in a municipality, being extensively intermingled. 
Of late — indeed for a long time — the original order has been 
reversed, and the parish has been spoken of as including of course 
a church ; and under its corporate title all parochial business of 
the society, consisting of persons within and without the church 
in its stricter acceptation, has been transacted. These two 
bodies, hoAvever, have here from the first been in great har- 
mony. In one respect it may be confidently affirmed, that they 
have ever been in perfect agreement ; Avhich is this : Plant- 
ing themselves, as both at the outset did, on the grand principle 
of their absolute independence of all foreign ecclesiastical con- 



30 

trol, they have been united by one spirit and the bond of peace 
in adhering to it without hesitation, wavering, or reservation ; in 
carrying it in practice fully out to its legitimate conclusions ; and, 
while loyally submitting to the civil law, acknowledging sub- 
jection to no other laws than those of conscience and of God. 
There is, too, a simplicity which to my apprehension is truly 
admirable, in the means employed by the founders of each, who 
were in fact mostly the same persons, to compass their chief aim, 
— the moral and religious improvement of their people. Unit- 
ing the offices common to both of pastor and teacher, which had 
elsewhere been kept distinct, they joined in the election of a 
single pastor or minister. Discarding the distinction that pre- 
vailed in other churches, between ruling elders and deacons, 
this church at the beginning elected simply the latter officers, 
from which course it has never since departed ; having been 
served by upwards of twenty in that capacity. Dispensing with 
all offices, lay or clerical, that were merely honorary or titular, 
both parish and church have hitherto created and sustained, 
whether for regular or special purposes, such only as had a 
practical and intimate relation to the furthering of its appro- 
priate objects, — as were deemed essential to the management of 
their prudential affairs, the raising, keeping, and expenditure of 
requisite pecuniary means, the distribution of charities, the sup- 
port and right administering of religious ordinances and institu- 
tions, the maintenance besides of friendly and mutually edifying 
relations with other Christian associations. And these offices 
have been filled from the first by persons (I speak as becomes 
me of the departed only) on whose characters no recorded 
stigma rests, and on whose reputation for high respectability, 
intelligence, and worth, any religious community might justly 
be congratulated. 

An important part in the preparation for establishing the 
church, and regarded indispensable by its founders, was the fram- 
ing and adoption of a covenant. That which they agreed upon 
was simple, comprehensive, liberal, — from little of which we 
of our denomination should dissent. Coupled with it was a 
confession of faith, more stringent, Calvinistic, to a great deal 



31 

of which Unitarians of all shades of belief could not subscribe. 
It is noticeable, that the earliest New-England church covenants 
were less restricted in doctrine and more liberal in spirit than 
many subsequently adopted, — some of them on the very spots 
where the former originally existed. Thus at Salem the first 
is ascertained to have been in these few expressive and preg- 
nant words : " We covenant Avith our Lord and one with an- 
other, and we do bind ourselves in the presence of God, to walk 
together in all his ways, according as he is pleased to reveal 
himself unto us in his blessed word of truth." It is pleasant 
to know and realize, that some of the fathers here were fore- 
most among the signers of this covenant, — so charmingly simple 
and concise, compressing so much of meaning within so little 
space, breathing so large a spirit of charity toward man and 
love to God ; harmonizing, too, so admirably with the saying of 
John Robinson, that God has much light yet to break forth from 
his holy word. Additions, nevertheless, were in no long time 
made to it, which, while multiplying articles of faith, abridged 
its breadth and freedom, and tended to narrow essentially the 
range of spiritual vision and feeling with any who might come 
under its binding power. So it was in the Pilgrim Church of 
Plymouth. When the late venerable James Kendall was about 
being settled there, he found a covenant in use and operation, 
to parts of which he could not conscientiously assent. He 
therefore prevailed on the members to restore the old first cove- 
nant on which that church was originally based, on which he 
had no difficulty in standing himself, or in admitting suitable 
candidates to membership. Various reasons may be assigned 
for this apparent declension in enlightened, liberal views and 
action. Among them, unquestionably, one not to be lightly 
considered or passed over is this, — the annoyance, dread, and 
hinderance occasioned in the ordering and carrying out of our 
ancestors' chosen mission, by the invading host of them whom 
they judged to be heretical and schismatic : such as the 
Brownes endeavoring to gain a foothold for Episcopacy, from 
which they had seceded and to which they were uncompromi- 
singly opposed ; Roger Williams impugning not only their 

6 



32 

doctrine of pedobaptism, but other deeply-rooted ideas of theirs on 
civil no less than on purely ecclesiastical matters ; Ann Hutchin- 
son, amid her divers eccentricities and assumptions, committing 
the unpardonable offence of declaring openly that the ministers in 
these parts preached " a covenant of works, and not of grace ; " 
the Quakers also — hardly, cruelly as they were treated, per- 
secuted and hanged, peace-loving, and not peace-disturbing, as 
their career on the whole has been — being then and here not 
literally Quietists, any more than they were of the sect of that 
name, that arose a thousand years before theirs, and was so 
called from esteeming quiet and inaction the acme of spiritual 
elevation and bliss. Neither should we leave out of the account 
the lust of domination, prevalent in all ages, over minds and 
consciences, which delights in lording it over God's heritage, 
which believes and suits its action to the belief that its own 
way is in that which all men should walk. 

We come now to the consummation toward which the ardent 
wishes of the fathers of this church and society had long tended. 
The 20th of September, 1667, — corresponding, when allow- 
ance is made for the difference between the old and new styles 
of reckoning, almost precisely to the date, two centuries later, of 
our present assembling, — was fixed upon as the day for organiz- 
ing the church, and for the ordination of its pastor elect. On 
that occasion, ministers and delegates Avere present, by invitation, 
from the neighboring churches of Ipswich, AVenham, and Salem. 
Of the attendance from the latter, say its records, " In regard to 
our nearness, and that they are a church issuing out of ourselves, 
it was thought meet for as many to be present as could ; so, when 
the day came, divers of the brethren were present." First in 
order was the formation of the church, which is thus briefly 
described : " Mr. Hale propounded and read a confession of faith 
and covenant, which they had often considered amongst them- 
selves, and did then (all that had been in full communion in the 
church of Salem) express their consent unto that confession and 
covenant, and so were owned as a particular and distinct church 
of themselves, by the messengers of the churches present." The 
service of ordination consisted in laying an of hands by John 



33 

Higgiuson, assisted by the two other ministers of churches then 
represented ; and thus was fellowship given and received, and 
the newly-appointed pastor consecrated and publicly recognized. 
Going back in fancy, through the long line of two centuries, to 
that simple and touching scene, may we not, without undue 
stress of faith or imagination, trust that the benediction implored 
by him who led in the service — who, the worthy son of a 
sainted sire, not for his name alone, but for his pure, benevolent, 
devout spirit, was the St. John of his time in our churches — 
Avas the much-availing prayer of the righteous, drawing down 
blessings untold and immeasurable on the fathers and their de- 
scendants in the past and all coming ages ? 

The ministry so auspiciously commenced lasted for the third 
of a century, with no interruption of the mutually happy rela- 
tions of pastor and people. They were thoughtful and liberal, 
according to their means and the requirements of the times, in 
providing for the support and comfort of himself and family ; 
and he was considerate, sympathizing, generous, faithful in pub- 
lic and private, toward them. Unbroken harmony of feeling 
and action appears to have prevailed between him and them ; 
excepting in the single instance of his having been appointed 
chaplain in the military expedition against the French of Canada, 
in 1690, when, contrary to the expressed wishes of his parishion- 
ers, and their remonstrance before the General Court against the 
appointment, he decided on its acceptance. We cannot but 
admire, as they undoubtedly did, the courage and self-sacrifice 
which prompted him to confront and share the perils of that 
hazardous expedition through the wilderness, that he might 
guide and guard the citizen-soldiers composing it amid the scarcely 
less moral dangers to which they would be exposed, especially 
that he might comfort and strengthen the portion of it — form- 
ing a whole company, under command of Captain Rayment — 
which was enlisted from his own parish. After the lapse of 
nearly a century and three-quarters, his coui'se and experience 
in that emergency come before us the more vividly, and senti- 
ments of admiring and patriotic pride and gratitude are awakened 
anew, by the parallel furnished by your present pastor, in the 



34 

recent struggle for national life, for civil liberty, for humanity's 
dearest rights and interests. 

Notwithstanding the disturbing forces from without, particu- 
larly the wars with the French and Indians, in which a large 
proportion of the population was at different times engaged, and 
by which sad disaster and havoc were occasionally wrought, the 
parish steadily gained in numbers and strength, and so far grew 
and flourished, that it became necessary to erect the second meet- 
ing-house, which was completed in 1682, and stood on this spot. 
*' This house, like the first, was used for the transaction of pub- 
lic business, and, beside the alterations and improvements made 
at various times, a powder-room was built in it for the safe- 
keeping of the ammunition belonging to the town. As fires at 
this time were never kindled in the meeting-house, it was con- 
sidered the safest place to deposit powder. The sacredncss of 
the place did not, however, allay the fears of the congregation, 
who left the house whenever a thunder-shower occurred." This 
structure, though in advance of the preceding and first one in 
form and convenience, was far from being what would now-a- 
days be regarded as very elegant or commodious. The exterior 
was in rude contrast with our modern notions of symmetry, 
adornment, and impressiveness. From the interior, all the 
beams and rafters, and the whole framework, were discernible. 
Tradition says there was whitewashing ; but, from the sincere 
and earnest character of the builders, Ave may conclude that 
there was little of that, were it but materially. No paint or 
plastering, outside or within, relieved the plain, uniform wood- 
color. The belfry was on the middle of the roof, the bell-rope 
coming down into the centre aisle ; on each side of which, and 
also in the gallery, were long benches for seating worshippers. 
What was the construction of the floor on which they rested, we 
do not precisely know, but may be sure it was not tessellated, or 
inlaid with precious stones or woods, — most probably was of or- 
dinary planks, since, between forty and fifty years after the house 
was built, a floor was laid " upon the beams with boards and 
joist." As for the carpeting, warming, and appliances for deco- 
ration or comfort, to which we are accustomed, the mere sugges- 



35 

tion of them would have been deemed by the buiklers a clear 
token of" irreverence, levit}^, and coldness of heart. 

" Seating the meeting " was with them a matter of special 
concern. As early as 1G71, a committee of the parish was 
appointed, to be "joined Avith the selectmen, to seat all the mar- 
ried persons in the meeting-house ; " from which it might be 
inferred, unjustly it is to be hoped, that there was indifference 
as to what seats the unmarried had, or whether they had any. 
Some systematic arrangement was obviously desirable and neces- 
sary, to avoid confusion, as well as to conform to the peculiar 
notions and customs of the time. The rules adopted for the dis- 
tribution of seats underwent various modifications, till at length 
they were reduced to an exact and clearly-defined system. By 
this it was ordered, — and so curious a specimen is it of the 
aristocracy and gallantry, no less than the simplicity and quaint- 
ness, that reigned in the period of which I am speaking, that I 
am tempted to quote its provisions; which are — 

" That every male be allowed one degree for every complete year 
of age he exceeds twenty-one ; that he be allowed for a captaui's com- 
mission twelve degrees, for a lieutenant's eight, and for an ensign's 
four degrees ; that he be allowed three degrees for every shilHng for 
real estate in the last parish tax, and one degree for every shilling 
for personal estate and faculty ; every six degrees for estate and 
faculty of a parent alive, to make one degree among his sons, or, 
wliere there are none, among the daughters that are seated ; every 
generation heretofore living in tliis town to make one degree for 
every male descendant that is seated ; parentage to be regarded no 
farther otherwise than to turn the scale between competition for the 
same seat ; that taxes for polls of sons and servants shall give no ad- 
vancement for masters or fathers, because such sons or servants have 
seats ; that no degree be allowed on account of any one's predecessors 
having paid towards building the meeting-house, because it had fallen 
down before now, but for repairs since made ; that some suitable 
abatement in degrees be made, where it is Avell known the person is 
greatly in debt ; that the tenant of a freehold for term of years shall 
be allowed as many degrees as half the real estate entitles him to, and 
the landlord the other half; that the proprietor of lands in any other 
parish shall be (if under his own improvement) allowed as nuicli as 



36 

he would be if they lay in this parish, but, if rented out, only half 
as much ; married women to be seated agreeably to the rank of their 
husbands, and widows in the same degree as though their husbands were 
yet living ; that the foremost magistrate seat (so called) shall be the 
highest in rank, and the other three in successive order ; that tlie next 
in rank shall be in the foremost of the front seats below, then the fore- 
seat in the front-gallery, then the fore-seat in the side-gallery ; that 
the side-seat below shall be for elderly men, the foremost first or high- 
est, and the others in order ; that the seats behind the fore-front seat 
below shall be for middle-aged men, according to their degree ; that 
the second or third seats in the front and side galleries shall be for 
younger men, to rank the second first, and the third next." 

Males were separated from females in location, and seats were 
assigned to the latter, corresponding to the rank fixed for them 
by the rules just stated. A grave objection to this arrangement 
was the separation of the children and youth from the parents, 
their natural guardians and regulators. Here the boy-genus was 
— Avhat in all ages and states of society 1 suppose it has been 
found to be — a serious element of disturbance. Children vs^ere 
mostly disposed of on benches in the aisles, or on the stairs. A 
portion of the boys, including, it may be presumed, the most 
unruly, were placed on the pulpit staircase, where they were 
under the eye of the minister and exposed to the gaze of 
the whole congregation. But this did not suffice to prevent 
or suppress insubordination in this least interesting part of the 
human creation. Such was the alarming height to which juve- 
nile misdemeanors in the midst of divine service had attained, 
that the town authorities were led to deliberate and take sum- 
mary measures respecting them. At one time it was " ordered 
by the selectmen, that the hinder seats of the elders' gallery be 
altered, and the boys are to sit there, and Robert Hubbard to 
have an eye out for them ; and for the first offence to acquaint 
their parents or masters of it, and, if they do offend again, to 
acquaint the selectmen with it, who shall deal with them accord- 
ing to law." Another time the town — being then, as to such 
matters, in all but name the parish — voted, " That the select- 
men make such orders as convenient for the prevention of boys 



37 

and idle persons from sitting in such places, in our meeting- 
house, wherein they are out of public view, and so, in time of 
public worship, spend much of their time in play and disorder." 
By no means let it be understood that the evil was confined to 
the limits of this parish. Our Salem mother, staid and vener- 
able as she might have been expected throughout to be, endured 
the same affliction. There, in 1676, an order was passed, "that 
all the boys of the town are and shall be appointed to sit upon 
the three pairs of stairs in the meeting-house on the Lord's 
day ; " and two persons were appointed to the charge of them, 
— one " to look to the boys that sit upon the pulpit stairs," the 
second " for the other stairs, to look to and order so many of 
the boys as may be convenient, and, if any are unruly, to pre- 
sent their names, as the law directs." Very many, not to say 
all, other parishes, before and ever since, have in like manner 
been troubled and tried by their " coming men." 

For various well-known purposes, especially for the right 
ordering of the sanctuary, the office of sexton has, from time im- 
memorial, been considered essential. The dread presence of that 
official, in particular when acting as tithing-man, will be remem- 
bered by not a few, in looking back to their youthful days, and 
might now often be needed, and be of salutary effect. Whether 
the duty of watching the drowsy worshippers and keeping them 
awake, which in some places was required of some one, devolved 
on him, does not precisely appear. But the turning of the glass 
specially belonged to him. An hour-glass was placed in a posi- 
tion where it could be observed by all present. Just as the ser- 
mon commenced, the sexton turned the glass. "If the minister 
completed his discourse before the sands had all run out, he was 
admonished that he had not complied with the reasonable expec- 
tations of his hearers, whether sleeping or waking, — both 
classes having tacitly contracted for an hour's enjoyment in their 
own way. If his zeal inclined him to go beyond the standard 
measure, the turning of the glass by the faithful sexton reminded 
him that he was asking more of the patience of his hearers than 
they had tacitly agreed to give. But instances were not rare in 
those days, when long sermons were less alarming than in this 



38 

age of dispatch, in which, as has been facetiously remarked, both 
preachers and hearers were well content to take a second, and 
even a third, glass together." By the substitution of clocks (to 
which, it is to be feared, eyes of weariness, more than of delight, 
now turn), if not before or otherwise, this custom has long since 
ceased ; and so the sexton's office was shorn of one of its chief 
distinctions. That office in this parish, for more than two cen- 
turies, has been filled by only seven individuals; it might 
almost be said by six, one of them having, within less than two 
months after he was appointed to it, dropped dead while ringing 
the evening bell. Of the first, the high praise is recorded, that, 
after a twenty years' service, it was required of his successor 
" that he should do, in all respects, as Goodman Bailey had 
done ; " and that he fulhlled the requirement we may infer 
from the fact, that he continued in office for over sixty years. 
The last sexton has served a quarter of a century, and is still 
active and useful in the performance of his duties. Many of us 
remember, with sincere regard and regrets, Thomas Barrett, his 
immediate predecessor, who officiated for about fifty years, — who 
was ever so orderly and punctual, so respectful and reverential, 
so thoughtful and kind toward the living, so tender of the dead. 
Few more than he could truly and from the heart say, "I love 
the habitation of thine house : how amiable are thy tabernacles 
unto me, O God ! " Seldom have I been more touched than 
when I saw his funeral procession wind around the front of this 
temple, which he had loved and served so well, and, entering the 
ancient first burial-ground, pass to the only vacant space for a 
grave ; which, long before, he had reserved for himself, that he 
might be buried by the side of the Avife of his youth. 

Music has from the first been here made an important part of 
public worship. Very diff'erent, indeed, have been the styles in 
which it has been performed. "Deaconing" the psalm was that 
which prevailed in the primitive and several succeeding ages. 
It was so termed because the "musical exercises of the sanctu- 
ary, according to the custom of the times, were conducted by 
one of the deacons, who officiated as chorister to the congrega- 
tion. He read the hymn, line by line, and set the tune, in 



39 

which each in ember joined by rote, in key and measure not 
always the most exact or harmonious." Various were the modi- 
fications this custom underwent. In 1764, it was voted, that 
singers be selected, and seated together, " that the spirit of sing- 
ing psalms might be revived, and that part of worship conducted 
with more regularity." Ten years later, the parish voted to 
locate the choir in the front gallery, opposite to the pulpit, and 
constituting a sort of correlative department Avith that, and com- 
missioned with full powers " to pitch the tune and take the lead 
in singing." Such changes were not effected in this generally 
esteemed important matter without serious discussions and con- 
flicts of opinion, and even strenuous resistance. Similar difficulties 
and controversy existed in regard to the collections used in the 
singing. Thus when, a century ago, Watts's Psalms and Plymns 
were introduced in place of the antiquated version previously in 
use, one man at least was so strongly moved as to take his hat, 
and walk hurriedly out of the assembly ; not quite so formal 
and dignified a protest as that which, on a like occasion, at a 
later period, was entered against what by some (and not a few) 
was considered an alarming and monstrous innovation, — an aged 
member of the second parish in this town rising amid its wor- 
shipping congregation under high excitement, and asserting, with 
utmost gravity and earnestness, that, if Solomon had beheld 
what they had then seen and heard, far from him would it have 
been to say, " There is nothing new under the sun." After an 
experience of more than a half century here, during which it 
was felt by many, that, admirable and excellent as is much of 
the devotional poetry of Watts, there is also much that accorded 
with neither their views nor taste, a change was imperatively 
demanded. Still there was a respectable minority, unwilling to 
have the book, with which were linked such hallowed associa- 
tions, superseded and banished from the sanctuary. Therefore 
a compromise was agreed on, by which the Watts' collection was 
to be used alternately with another (the West Boston one), 
which, while retaining some of the best in the former, omitted 
the most objectionable. But this, like most compromises, re- 
sulted fatally to the yielding party; the giving up of a part 

6 



40 

having been soon followed by a concession of the whole, and the 
old supplanted altogether by the new. Any changes since made 
in your psalmody or hymnology, being such as were required by 
progress in intellectual and literary culture and devotional senti- 
ment, have been accomplished with little or no agitation or dis- 
sension. And as for your choir, from its first institution, charged 
with giving voice and expression to the words of poets, inspired 
and uninspired, it has had less of the discord, in feeling and 
action, naturally expected from the association of a delicate and 
sensitive organization with musical taste and skill ; while, com- 
posed as it ever has been almost entirely of your own members, 
among them some of the most respectable and worthy, as well 
as gifted and proficient in the science of sweet sounds and grand 
harmonies, they have not failed of their high duty of ministering, 
for themselves and others, to the sacred melody of the fervent 
and devout heart. 

Witchcraft, or rather notions and practices relating to it, 
constituted a chief disturbing element in this society's first age. 
While the tempest, which demonology had from all times and 
lands, and the four winds of heaven, been gathering, burst in 
the immediate vicinity, this place must of necessity share in the 
wreck and ruin wrought by one of the direst commotions that 
ever raged in a community with any pretensions to being termed 
civilized or Christian. As we review the authentic accounts of 
the great drama enacted in 1692, with its reign of terror and 
awful tragedies, a nightmare seems upon us ; and we pass, as it 
were, through a horrid dream. Ishmaelitish, in fact, a large 
portion of the people of this region had become, — their hands 
against every man, and every man's hand against theirs. Some 
of the strongest bonds by which society is held in unity, peace, 
and order, appeared about to be dissolved, and its very existence 
to be in jeopardy, — threatened with fast-approaching dissolu- 
tion. Panic, mutual accusations, arrests, imprisonments, pre- 
vailing distrust and jealousies, wide-spread and untold anguish 
in individuals and families, the whole vast mass of misery and 
evil resulting from what we feel justified in pronouncing the 
witchcraft delusion, were not confined to this particular neigh- 



41 

borhood. Elsewhere, scarcely less than in this devoted locality, 
the social fabric reeled and rocked on its apparently insecure 
base. Andover caught the contagion, having been visited by 
some of the propagators of the delusion direct from the district 
peculiarly infected : and a visitation truly it proved, not of an2;el 
strangers, but their opposites in human shape ; and their visit 
did indeed cost dear, being followed by some of the worst calami- 
ties growing out of the scourge they brought. Prisoners by the 
hundred were lodged in jails, not in Salem only, but in Ipswich, 
Boston, and Cambridge. There they were immured in damp and 
loathsome cells, enduring grievous privations, looking back with 
harrowing regrets to the homes from which thev had been torn, 
the friends from whom they had been abruptly and cruelly sun- 
dered, and forward with dreadful anticipation of capital trials, in 
which just and established rules of evidence, with the principles 
on which they are founded, would be ignored or set at nought > 
in which the most trivial, irrelevant, and absurd testimony would 
be freely admitted, and, in short, conviction of guilt be a fore- 
gone conclusion. The first victim of such trials — and, with 
such, truth obliges us to class the Salem trials for witchcraft — 
was Mrs. Edward Bishop, a member in full communion with 
this church. She was a woman of marked peculiarities in man- 
ners, style of dress, and mode of living, and quite independent 
of the opinions and fashions of her time. One of the witnesses 
against her " mentions, as corroborative proof of Bridget Bishop's 
being a witch, that she used to bring to his dye-house ' sundry 
pieces of lace,' of shapes and dimensions entirely outside of his 
conceptions of what could be needed in the wardrobe, or for the 
toilet of a plain and honest woman. He evidently regarded 
fashionable and vain apparel as a snare and sign of the Devil." 
If such proofs were still held to be allowable and convincing, 
they would bear hardly on many fine ladies of our day, who 
would thus be shown to be in a league, of which they could not 
be supposed ambitious to form a component part. Eccentric, 
self-reliant, firm in asserting and maintaining her rights, and, if 
need were, — as sometimes happened, — courageous in resisting 
interference with them, Mrs. Bishop's character had those salient 



42 

points on which a persecution, mainly composed of superstition, 
fanaticism, vanity, spiritual pride, personal hostility, and private 
vengeance, was exactly adapted to fasten. Accordingly, at differ- 
ent times in a series of years previously to her final accusation 
and arraignment, she had been charged with egregious offences, 
especially with that most heinous sin of having conspired with 
Satan against the peace and welfare of mankind in general, and 
of God's elect in particular. She had, however, continued in 
regular standing with this church ; and had been sustained and 
exculpated, under the heavy charges brought against her, by the 
members, including the minister, up to the time of her arrest by 
civil process. Among the saddest of stories is that of the closing 
scenes of her life, which yet may be told in a single and not 
very lengthened sentence. Di'agged from her domestic retreat, 
with its appliances and comforts ; brought into the crowded 
assembly ; confronted there on the one hand by the examining 
magistrates in solemn state, and on the other by her false and 
infatuated accusers ; on the wretched pretences there made 
committed to a dungeon ; borne thence, solitary and alone, 
through streets thronged with a promiscuous multitude of the 
horror-stricken, the sad (some wisely sad), and the jeering and 
scoffing, to the court, where on testimony inostly frivolous, none 
of it relevant or well-substantiated, she was condemned to an 
ignominious death on the scaffold ; and which having suffered, 
she was buried at the foot as it were of her cross, — all this, 
passing and endured within a few swiftly-fleeting weeks, into 
which were crowded the excruciating agonies of months and 
years. Thus passed away and perished one, a sincere, high- 
spirited, and Christian woman, whose blood has since flowed, 
and continues to flow, in the veins of some of the oldest and 
most respectable families in this vicinity. Thus perished the 
first of the twenty who — in that day, darkened by delusion and 
superstition of deepest dye, who, protesting uniformly conscious 
innocence — laid down their lives, and left their bodies to be 
deposited amid the crevices of the rocks, and scantily covered 
by earth, in the place of execution. On the rocky height selected 
for the purpose, and known by the interchangeable names of 



43 

Witch and GalloM's Hill, with a grand surrounding expanse of 
town and country, sea and land, it may have been intended to 
set up a beacon of warning against all demoniacal approaches, 
wiles, and machinations ; but, if it were a light set on a hill, it 
was one that shone with an ominous, a lurid, dismal radiance, 
and was wholly destitute of a cheering beam or genuine spiritual 
illumination. 

One of the aggravating circumstances in the bitter experience 
of the first sacrifice to that mockery of justice, the Salem trials 
for witchcraft, was, that her own minister, who on former like 
occasions had stood up for her defence and succeeded in her 
rescue, testified at the last against her, and thus effectively 
aided in sealing her deplorable fate. For his conduct in this 
case, and the general countenance he gave to the delusion when 
at its height. Hale has been the subject of strong animadversion, 
— been charged, indeed, with gross inconsistency. Judging, 
however, from the character accorded to him by his contempo- 
raries, for integrity, for high and varied excellence, I incline to 
believe that the inconsistency, apparent or actual, involved only 
the effects of the overshadowing and controlling power of theo- 
retical error and sympathetic excitement, not of intentional 
wrong. But if the discernment and wisdom, attributed to him 
by some of the leading minds of his time, for a while were 
overborne and deserted him, the scales were soon made to fall 
from his eyes, and many beside his, by the evil being brought 
home to his own door. Perhaps the extreme had been reached, 
from which a recoil was inevitable. However that may have 
been, the re-action, whether begun then or before, was greatly 
accelerated when accusations were pointed at Mrs. Hale, whose 
superior worth was acknowledged and highly appreciated, as 
it was widely known. The commotion subsided by an almost 
instant collapse. Accusers became the accused. Those lately 
leaders were in their turn cried out against, and reproached in 
no measured terms as deceivers, by the deluded. Judges were 
severely judged, — some of them, like Sewall, coming out and 
manfully confessing the egregious errors into which they had 
fallen. Others there were who — instead of being incensed, 



44 

or prompted to attempts at self-justification, by the reproaches 
heaped upon them as the aiders and abettors of the dekision, 
and therefore authors of so much mischief and suffering — set 
calmly and humbly about a review of the whole subject, taking 
for the guidance of their search the combined lights of experi- 
ence, philosophy, and religion. Prominent among such was 
John Hale. Several years after the convulsions and horrors of 
1692 had passed, when the excitement attendant and conse- 
quent on them had been allowed sufficient opportunity to sub- 
side, he published the results of his investigation in a small 
volume, highly commended at the time, and bearing the stamp 
of an intelligent, candid, earnest spirit. In that he takes dis- 
tinctly the ground, that the witchcraft prosecutions were pushed 
to unjustifiable extremes. His reasons in reply to the question, 
" How it doth appear that there was a going too far in this 
affair," certainly have point and force. Briefly they are these : 
The great number of the accused, the quality or character of 
several of them, the number (fifty at least) of the afflicted, un- 
qualified denial of guilt by all who were executed, and finally 
that Satan had been chained, so that accusers and accused had 
been quiet, for the five years and more that had elapsed since 
the last of the trials. 

That book was shortly followed by another, which had great 
influence in enlightening and settling the public mind, — pre- 
pared by a Boston merchant, Robert Calef, and entitled " The 
Wonders of the Invisible World." Its spirit, far from being 
calm, gentle, reserved like the former, was free, outspoken, with 
a strong admixture of the indignant. He speaks without hesi- 
tation or qualification of the chief actors in the tragic scenes, 
which were then fresh, and bitter as they were fresh, in the 
recollection of multitudes, as " these criminals and their bloody 
principles." His summing up I give in substance, and nearly 
in his own language : — 

" As long as Cliristians, real or uorainal, deem tlie law of the Lord 
imperfect, not describing iu tliis matter tlie crime punishable with 
death; the Devil a power^ above and against nature; the witches to 
commission him ; the Devil's testimony to be preferred, invariably 



45 

and whatever the trustworthiness of the arraigned, to their plea of 
not guilty ; life and liberty depending on confession of guilt ; that 
the accused should undergo hardships and torments ; teats for the Devil 
to suck be searched on the body as tokens of guilt ; the Lord's prayer 
to be adopted, in a manner by which it is profaned, for a test ; witch- 
craft, sorcery, familiar spirits, necromancy, with many other proofs 
alike fanciful and frivolous, to be used in discovering witches, — 
while such things, that had been lately witnessed, and the effects of 
which were far from having died away, are believed, said, and 
done, so long it may be expected the innocent will suffer, God be 
dishonored, and his judgments contemned." 

Cotton Mather, incensed at the rough handling this little book 
gave him and his coadjutors in promoting the witchcraft delu- 
sions and persecutions, was betrayed by his indignation into 
exclaiming, with one letter dropped from the name of its author, 
" that Calf." There is a copy of the volume in the Massachu- 
setts Historical Society's library, which once belonged to Mather 
himself, in Avhich, on the inside of the cover, is quoted in his 
own handwriting, from the Book of Job, the passage, " Would 
that mine adversary had written a book ! surely I would take 
it upon my shoulder, and bind it as a crown to me." An ad- 
versary of his Calef clearly was, — an opponent not wholly 
free from acerbity, because, with enlightenment on the subject 
he treated, superior to most of that of his age, he smarted under 
a sense of the errors, misdeeds, and cruelties of any and all 
engaged in bringing on, keeping up, and heightening the delu- 
sion. But the quotation just repeated, and under the circum- 
stances made, would seem a luciis a non lucendo, — the accepted 
phrase for denoting words used to signify the opposite of their 
literal or derivative sense. At any rate, the wish so expressed 
by Mather he might, were he among us and so far as his credit 
for wisdom and right conduct is concerned, gladly reverse, 
making it to run thus : " Would that my friend had not writ- 
ten a book ! " — in view of one recently issued, in which, Avith no 
other than friendly feelings, but with the higher love of truth, 
the shameful part borne by him in fostering the delusion and 
pursuing its victims is faithfully depicted. I refer, it hardly 



46 

needs be said, to Upham's "History of Witchcraft," — a work 
truly admirable for the thorough research, and the varied and ex- 
tensive learning it displays, for its elegant and captivating style, 
its vivid and fascinating descriptions, and above all the practi- 
cal value of its teachings, — leaving little to be desired, and 
still less to be anticipated, from future gleanings in the field 
surveyed. 

I have been led further into this subject than at first con- 
templated, by the important bearing it was found to have on 
the early history of this parish, — entering largely into the 
opinions and feelings, the customs, habits, and experiences, of 
its people, involving the sacrifice of the life of one at least, and 
disturbing the peace and jeopardizing the lives of many, of its 
members. Its first minister, we have seen, was extensively 
implicated in the responsibilities, and connected with the scenes 
of persecution and horror, which arose amid the distractions of 
the time ; and creditable as in some respects was his course in 
that day of severe trial, in others it required, if not censure, to 
be explained, and, as far as might be, vindicated. The position 
of his wife throughout, and especially in the climax of the 
fanatical excitement, was most honorable to herself and her 
sex. May we not rejoice, with something of local and paro- 
chial pride, that one of the sorest plagues with which humanity 
was ever visited, should have been in no small degree stayed 
and turned back by the delicate hand, the gentle spirit, and 
recognized virtues of that noble. Christian woman ? From 
examples like hers we may learn the great lesson, that there is 
no power on earth to be compared with rectitude and conscious 
virtue, either in resisting temptation, and, as the strong language of 
Scripture has it, " in quenching the fiery darts of the wicked ; " 
or in standing calm and firm, undaunted and unharmed, amid 
the tumults and rage of the people. And there are other 
lessons, which we of this age and all ages may well draw and 
apply with close self-application. They spring up and present 
themselves at the most impartial review of the ground which 
we have just traversed. While we view with unqualified admi- 
ration the grand and lofty position taken and sustained by some. 



47 

among them the leading and largest minds, in that war of spirit- 
ual elements ; whilst we admire, if possible yet more, the moral 
courage of those who suffered death, facing a cruel, wretched, 
and ignominious fate without dismay, meekly submitting them- 
selves to the wrath of man and trusting to the mercy of God, 
who, they felt, knew and would attest the sincerity of their 
protested innocence, — not doubting, it might be and vie trust 
was, that their posterity would not -withhold from them the 
meed of simple justice and tender compassion, — while we be- 
hold this bright side of the picture, — for, notwithstanding the 
thick and dark clouds around, it was gloriously bright, — we must 
not, cannot, shut our eyes to that black one, from which issue 
ever-sounding voices of solemn warning. They warn us against 
the sin, the dangers, and evils of deception. No inquirer, 
though but moderately enlightened and candid, it seems to me, 
can doubt that gross deceit was the chief, I had almost said 
the sole, of the M'itcheries practised in those times that tried 
souls and witches together. Collusion went hand in hand with 
delusion. Mr. Parris, the minister of Salem village, now known 
as Dan vers, in which the proceedings against witches originated, 
unless awfully belied by contemporary and subsequent accounts, 
was no inapt pupil in the school of the arch-deceiver ; follow- 
ing, if not with equal steps, at no commendable distance, — 

" The first 
That practised falsehood under saintly show, 
Deep malice to conceal." 

Then there were young girls and women, who, beginning with 

the practice of magic arts that were regarded innocent, quickly 

degenerated into death-dealing ones. Whatever the palliating 

circumstances which may be arrayed in their favor, it is evident 

they were to no small extent possessed and actuated by the foul 

spirit of deception. Against that in its very beginnings, the 

evil, which, led on by it, they wrought, speaks trumpet-tongued 

to old and young, and to all of every age, saying, in the strong 

utterance of the poet, — 

7 



48 

" Wliat a tangled web we weave, 
Wlien first we practise to deceive ! 
Sincerity, thou first of virtues. Let 
No mortal leave the onward path, 
Although the earth should gape. 
And from the gulf of hell destruction cry. 
To take dissimulation's winding way." 

We are warned also, by the memorable and tragic events 
alluded to and thus famtly sketched, against the perils and bad 
consequences of superstition and fanaticism. A great mistake 
it would be to suppose that these disturbing and dangerous 
causes had died out, or had ceased to operate. Existing ten- 
dencies, even in these modern times, show but too plainly that 
they need to be assiduously watched and guarded against. In 
respect to them, no less than to freedom, eternal vigilance is the 
price of security. If the beginning of strife is as when one 
letteth out water, Avhich from the small stream soon grows to 
the torrent mighty to deluge, lay waste, and destroy; so fanatical 
passion may in the outset be the little fire which shortly kindles 
into a great conflagration, and becomes a vast, devouring ele- 
ment. "Of all things," says Burke, "wisdom is the most terri- 
fied with epidemical fanaticism, because, of all enemies, it is that 
against which she is least able to furnish any kind of resource." 
And the rationale of the matter is plain. Reasoning with ]3as- 
sion, as such and alone, what is it but undertaking to reason 
with one both deaf and blind, that will not see or hear to reason ? 
Nothing can be more unsatisfactory and utterly vain. There- 
fore, while we admit freely the sacred obligation to keep our 
minds and hearts open to all of light and holy influence that 
may come from this world or another, and from all worlds, it 
becomes us to watch, with vigils always awake and active, against 
the passionate fires lighted and fed by superstition, fanaticism, 
or error of any sort, and to let our zeal for the truth, and the 
right even, be tempered by moderation, at the same time that it 
is, as it should be, ever-living and fervent. 

But the storms of fanatical excitement, and of war with savages 
and civilized men, had subsided, when, in May, 1700, the pri- 
meval epoch of this parish was closed, and Hale, its first minis- 



49 

ter, sank peacefully — honored, beloved, deeply lamented — to 
his final earthly rest ; yet not without leaving a posterity to bear 
up his name and nobly transmit his worth, some of whom we 
gladly welcome here to-day, to aid in this commemorative ser- 
vice. He was succeeded, the following year, by Thomas Blow- 
ers, who was highly esteemed for his learning and virtues, and 
particularly for his devotedness to the duties of his profession. 
When a plan was set on foot by some of the leading ministers 
of the province to consociate the churches, and thus curtail 
their individual freedom. Blowers stood up manfully among the 
foremost to resist what he viewed, as we certainly do, an at- 
tempted usurpation of ecclesiastical authority. That attempt, 
which then was effectually foiled, was renewed early in the 
present century in our State, only to be again and alike unsuc- 
cessful. He also distinguished himself by sustaining the elec- 
tion of Leverett to the presidency of Harvard against strenuous 
opposers, who planted themselves mainly on the ground, that 
the incumbent of that office should be selected from the cleri^y, 
and not from the laity. By so doing, he did good and effective 
service, and likewise manifested a wise and true liberality. His 
departure, in the midst of his usefulness and the twenty-eighth 
year of his ministry, was felt and mourned as a heavy loss and 
bitter personal bereavement in this and the neighboring parishes. 
From the strong hold he had, on not only the respect but affec- 
tionate attachment of the generation with whom and for whom 
he lived and labored, of which the tradition, after the lapse of a 
century and a half, is still fresh among us, he appears to have 
been regarded, in a wide circle here and elsewhere, as a model 
minister of his time, loving and greatly loved. Chief-Justice 
Blowers, of Nova Scotia, long the oldest surviving graduate of 
Harvard, who died in 1842, at the age of a hundred years, was 
his grandson. His memory is brought visibly, as it were, before 
us by his legacy of one of the most ancient silver pieces of the 
communion service, which, including precious memorials of other 
worthy donors, you have done well to spread at this time on the 
Lord's table, guarded on cither side by those whose office it is 



50 

to keep them and distribute their consecrated contents ; thus 
recognizing simple truth, not mere fancy, in the words, — 

" Tlie saints below and saints above 
But one comnumion make ; " 

and linking memories of departed benefactors and friends with 
the remembrance of him, whom, above all that have lived on 
earth, we are bound to remember with grateful reverence and 
love, — the Lord and Master who loved us with a love stronger 
than death. 

The parish, too, has from time to time had its benefactions to 
recollect and acknowledge. Every one, however limited his 
means or small his contribution, who contributes of his sub- 
stance toward upholding it and enlarging its usefulness, is to be 
accounted its benefactor. Still more is he such, and deserving 
to be mentioned as such, who, however humble, by worth of 
character and disinterested exertion, promotes, in ways the most 
effectual, its prosperity and efficiency. Pecuniarily the largest, 
and by his example among the best, of its benefactors, is Joshua 
Fisher, eminent as a physician and civilian, a president of the 
Massachusetts Medical Society, State senator, founder of the lead- 
ing charitable institution of this town, which is named after him, 
and of the professorship of Natural History in Harvard Univer- 
sity, also bearing his name : withal, throughout a very long life, 
taking a large and liberal interest in all subjects, — religious, 
political, social, or of any kind that related to the good of indi- 
viduals and society. Connected with, him in establishing, during 
the earlier part of my ministry, a parochial fund, was Israel 
Thorndike, — who, born here in obscurity, illustrated in his 
course the equal right of all our people to aspire and strive for 
the highest positions of affluence or power ; having, from small 
beginnings, become a merchant-prince, and accumulated at his 
decease one of the largest fortunes then possessed in New Eng- 
land. His great abilities, manifested in public and private 
spheres, were extensively known and freely admitted. While 
his memory will be perpetuated in the University by his rare 
and valuable gift of the Ebeling Library, it will also be cherished 



51 

as that of a generous supporter and friend of this his native 
parish. 

Following the second pastor were three in succession bearing 
the christened name Joseph, on whom the mantle — of wisdom, 
prudence, purity, and fidelity to all relations — of the son of 
Jacob seems to have fallen. The first was Joseph Champney, 
whose ministry is the longest as yet in this parish, having been 
protracted to its forty-fourth year. Mild and retiring in his dis- 
position, he did not attain marked prominence of reputation and 
influence. But being affectionate, earnest, devoted to the wel- 
fare of his people, a warm, mutual regard and attachment from 
the first sprang up between him and them, which lasted and 
strengthened through their long connection, and followed him to 
his grave. If deficient to a degree in energy of character, he 
had in Robert Hale, the grandson of the first minister, and his 
OAvn college classmate and friend, a strong right arm, a veritable 
tower of strength, on which to lean amid all his parochial duties 
and responsibilities, who was at his side, a powerful lay colleague, 
from the beginning to almost the close of his long ministry. 
Rarely, here or anywhere, has arisen the man, who, more than 
Hale, has left a deep, broad mark of versatile ability on the com- 
munity in which, from birth to death, he lived. His precocity 
is sufficiently evinced by the fact, that, in his sixteenth year, he 
was appointed master of the grammar school of the town. 
"Facile princeps," meaning natural and ready leader, Avould 
seem to have been written on his forehead at his very birth. It 
is positively bewildering to run through the list of the various 
End multiplied ofiSces — professional (for he was bred a physi- 
cian), civil, military, ecclesiastical — which he discharged ; yet 
■witli an unfailing, never-faltering method, sagacity, and eflfici- 
cncy. Whether engaged in municipal offices, or in superintend- 
ing the schools and watchmg over the interests of education, or 
in the concerns of the church and parish, or in those of the 
county of which for some time he was high sheriff, or in military 
affairs (having had command of a regiment, and tfd<cn a leading 
part under Pepperell in the siege and reduction of Louisbourg), 
or in financial matters, or in business of the province (having 



52 

served many years as a member of the legislature and of the 
governor's council, or in important negotiations intrusted to him 
between this and other provinces), — in all he Avas alike emi- 
nent and influential. So that when he drew up the rules for 
seating the congregation, already quoted, and the otherwise 
delicate duty devolved on him of providing the uppermost seat 
for himself, such was the general deference to his character and 
position as to free him from embarrassment in so doing. There 
w^ere none to question or dispute his full right and title to the 
first place, either under that or any previous code framed for 
the same purpose. 

For several of the later years of Mr. Champney's pastorate, 
the subject was much agitated of replacing the second meeting- 
house with a third. At length the work was commenced and 
pursued in good earnest. The temple — which had stood on this 
spot and spread its sheltering wings over three generations of 
worshippers, and been to many, we trust, the house of God and 
gate of heaven — was taken down, and this in which we are now 
gathered was erected in its stead ; public worship, meanwhile, 
being conducted under a large tree near the pastor's residence, 
at the easterly end of the common. This house, at the begin- 
ning, was decidedly in advance of its predecessor, in appearance 
and accommodations. Still, it Avas not without its drawbacks ; 
among which may be mentioned, deficiency in arrangements for 
warming : and the seats being on hinges, from which, at the 
rising and sitting of the assembly, proceeded a sound which has 
been fitly compared to the rattling produced by a running fire 
of musketry. Owing to the growth of the parish, it was mate- 
rially enlarged in a quarter of a century from its erection, and 
so continued till, forty years later, it was thoroughly repaired, 
remodelled, furnished wdth a new organ, and beautifully fres- 
coed ; so that the text I chose for the re-opening was scarcely 
extravagant for its description, — " The workmen wrought, and 
the work was perfected by them ; and they set the house of God 
in its state, and strengthened it." But thirty years and more 
have since glided away, — glided past not a few of us. New, and 
in some respects undoubtedly better, tastes have arisen and been 



53 

nurtured. In accordance with tlicm, the house that was builded 
many years ago has been builded again. The place of the sanc- 
tuary has been at once beautified and rendered more commo- 
dious. The walls from which echoed the tones of the solemn, 
earnest, devout voices of four of your deceased and revered pas- 
tors, stand in pristine strength, in renovated freshness, and added 
beauty ; ready, we hope, to receive and welcome all who shall 
be gathered within them to better impulses, more favoring and 
benign auspices, a more improved moral and spiritual condition, 
than have before been here known and enjoyed. When I 
learned, that, in the recent alterations, the old oaken frame was 
found undecayed, rather hardened and made firm by age, I was 
reminded of an eccentric minister, who, on being consulted by a 
committee of his society as to the expediency of repairing or 
building anew their church, instantly replied, " By all means 
repair, for I can vouch for the soundness of the sleepers." 1 
beg you, my friends, not to suppose for a moment that the covert 
but thinly-veiled satire thus conveyed is intended in the least 
for you. If so, I should fear being met by the query, " Who 
was it that put us to sleep ? " Be assured, I have experienced 
too much and long your patience and wakeful attention, in listen- 
ing to my humble utterances, to apprehend in the slightest 
degree any occasion for reviving among you an early New- 
England practice, the description of which I give in the words 
of the annalist, — 

" In some places it was customary, during the public service, for 
a persoQ to go about the meeting-house to wake the sleepers. He 
bore a long wand, on one end of which Avas a ball, and on the other a 
fox-tail. When he observed the men asleep, he rapped them on the 
head with the knob ; and roused the slumbering sensibilities of the 
ladies by drawing the brush slightly across their faces." 

A few months before Mr. Champney's death, in 1773, Joseph 
Willard was settled as colleague-pastor. Coming as he did from 
the college at Cambridge, where he had passed ten previous 
years as pupil and tutor, with a high reputation as a scholar, 
theologian, and man, he was welcomed cordially by the majority 



of the parish. Some there were who were troubled with doubts 
about the soundness of his faith ; the Arminian controversy- 
being tlien rife, and he being suspected, not without reason, of 
having proclivities in that direction. All opposition, however, 
was soon disarmed by his prudence, his weight of character, his 
devotedness to the ministerial office and pastoral duty, and, I 
may add, by his good-humored treatment of the easily-disturbed 
and alarmed. To one not conversant with theological terms, 
who said to him, " Tliey do say that you are a musk-melcn," — 
that being the questioner's nearest approach to the name Ar- 
minian, — he smilingly answered, " Don't you believe it ; for, if 
I had been, I should long ere this have been eaten up." How- 
ever, he soon was firmly and universally fixed in the confidence 
and aff"ections of his people, and ever afterward so continued. 
His ministiy here was cast in troublous and trying times. The 
seeds of the Ke volution, that was to separate this from the 
mother country, had been sown and were fast germinating. A 
true patriot himself, he contributed much to kindle and keep 
alive the general flame of patriotism. And not in word only, 
but in deeds, was his patriotic devotion shown. On the ever- 
memorable 19th of April, 1775, when alarm-bells and guns were 
sounded, and messengers were riding with hot haste in every 
direction to announce that the war had begun, and rouse the 
populations to arms, he was among the first to repair to the 
scene of bloody conflict ; and it is a fact worthy of note, to be 
ascribed in no small part to his exertions and influence, that two 
companies from this town bore a part in the fight, having one of 
their men killed and several wounded, and having marched a 
greater distance than had any others engaged in the contest. 

He also took an intelligent and active interest in civil aff"airs. 
His fellow-townsmen often availed themselves of the aid of his 
sound judgment, his practical wisdom, and energy. For instance, 
I find his name on a committee to report on a constitution for 
the State, which was rejected ; and again, two years later, in 
1780, on the one then framed and adopted. He was constantly 
in consultation Avith leading citizens, and frequently joined with 
them on committees for public business. Upon both of those 



55 

just named, he was connected with his confidential friend and 
parishioner, George Cabot, — who was then developing the 
character for business capacity and action, for surpassing con- 
versational talent and address, for political sagacity, — as a civi- 
lian, a man, and a Christian, — wdiich carried with it a charmed 
spell and power over men's minds in the wide circle within 
which he moved, enabled him to attain marked distinction in 
the State and national councils, and gave him a prominent rank 
among the distinguished and able men of the country. There 
were other objects, outside of his professional avocations, that 
claimed and shared Mr. Willard's attention and exertions. 
Deeply interested and ever watchful for the right and thorough 
training of the young, he was indifferent to none of the means 
by which those of an older growth might have their minds 
enlarged and cultivated. At the same time, he Avas not unmind- 
ful of, but looked well to, the discipline and expansion of his 
own intellect. Indeed, considering the engrossing nature of 
his profession, which was so sustained by him as — instead of 
his being subject to the imputation of neglecting its duties — to 
make him regarded, in and out of the parish, a pattern of devot- 
edness to their fulfilment, it is amazing that he should have 
accomplished what he did in other departments. Amid the 
pressure of parochial cares and professional engagements, and 
notwithstanding the excitements, privations, and struggles of the 
Revolutionary war, that raged through the larger part of his 
ministry, and in which he acted and endured a no inconsider- 
able part, he never remitted his habits of application to literature 
and science. In the classics, particularly the Greek, he was an 
eminent scholar ; which is the more remarkable, from the cir- 
cumstance of his not having commenced the study of the ancient 
languages till after he was of age. Mathematics, astronomy, and 
natural philosophy were also favorite studies with him ; in the 
pursuit of the last two, having procured and been aided by a 
set of valuable instruments. On the dark day of May, 1T80, — 
supposed to have been caused by dense clouds of smoke from a 
distance, which in a peculiar state of the atmosphere hovered 
over this region, — when the light of mid-day was suddenly 



56 

changed to the darkness of night, and fear and trepidation 
seized upon the animal creation, scarcely less than man, Mr. 
Willard, like the true philosopher he was, took a station on the 
green in front of his house, with the requisite apparatus, to 
examine and interpret, if possible, the solemnly impressive phe- 
nomena. Soon numbers of persons gathered around him in a 
state of intense alarm and terror, whom his calmness and self- 
possession, and wise and kind words, did much to tranquillize 
and re-assure. As he was proceeding with his observations, a 
man nearly out of breath rushed up to him with the announce- 
ment, " The tide has done flowing ; " when, quietly looking at 
his watch, he deliberately replied, " So it has, for it is just high- 
Avater." In 1781, one of the numerous privateers from this 
quarter — that did so much, by their depredations on British 
commerce, to reconcile Britain to the loss of " the brightest jewel 
of her crown," and bring the war of the Revolution to a close — 
arrived at this port, under command of the noted Hugh Hill, 
with a prize captured on the English coast. It was owned by 
Andrew Cabot and John his brother, — two intelligent, enter- 
prising, and public-spirited citizens of the town, opulent mer- 
chants, — whose expensive, spacious, and imposing mansions, 
striking in appearance as they now stand, must have been much 
more so in the comparative simplicity of the period in which 
they were reared ; and from whose families that peerless trio 
of brothers, Charles, James, and Patrick T. Jackson, so eminent 
and worthy in their respective walks of life (the legal, medical, 
and mercantile), obtained their excellent wives. Among the 
treasures contained in the prize, and, as it proved, far the most 
valuable of them all, was the celebrated Kirwan library, consist- 
ing of more than a hundred scientific works, ancient and modern, 
which, when taken, was in transit from England to its proprietor 
in Ireland. At the suggestion of Mr. Willard, the owners 
generously relinquished their title to it ; allowing it to be sold, in 
compliance with law, to an association of gentlemen resident 
here and in Salem, for a mere nominal price, — the sum of 
thirty-eight shillings actually paid for it being out of all propor- 
tion and ludicrously small, compared with its intrinsic value and 



57 

beneficial results. To the honor of Richard Kirwan, it should 
be mentioned, that he declined an offer of compensation for his 
property in it, preferring to have it pass for an outright gift to 
the infant cause and scanty means of scientific progress, in a 
country not yet emerged from the clouds of desperate strife with 
his own for separate national existence ; and this is the more 
honorable to him, for the magnanimous superiority he thus 
showed to the jealousies and enmities inevitably growing out of 
war. The books, so fortunately secured, were first committed 
to Willard's keeping, in the assurance, no doubt, that in his 
hands they would be well cared for and faithfully used and im- 
proved, — under certain rules, nevertheless, for the free use of 
them by any members of the association to which they belonged. 
Upon his removal from Beverly they were transferred to Salem, 
where they were united with other collections, first under the 
name of the Philosophical Library, then that of the Salem 
Athenaeum, and finally of the Essex Institute, of which flourish- 
ing, richly endowed, greatly valued and useful institution it may 
be considered a, if not the, germ. From that germ alone great 
advantage has by not a few been derived. Our famous mathe- 
matician, Nathaniel Bowditch, of world-wide fame, availed 
himself extensively of the aid afforded by the Kirwan books, 
especially in the earlier portion of his remarkable career, when 
such works were rare and difficult, at least in this country, to 
be procured ; and his sense of indebtedness, for the valuable 
assistance he derived from them, was freely and gratefully ac- 
knowledged by him while living, and testified at his decease 
by a liberal legacy to the institution in which they are deposited, 
and of which they form a part. 

Just as Mr. Willard was about entering on the tenth year of 
his pastorate, he was elected by a unanimous vote of the over- 
seers of Harvard College to its presidency. Honorable as was 
the appointment, it was very far from being a position of ease 
or irresponsibility to which he was invited. Any one reading 
Quincy's history of the institution will perceive at a glance that 
it was -to- no bed of roses, or dignified leisure, to which he 
was called. The llevolutionary war was raging. Denioraliza- 



58 

tlon, connected with and resulting from it, had not passed the 
college by. Discipline and education in it, the habits of study 
and morals of the students, had not escaped the disturbing and 
deteriorating influences that were abroad. Financial embarrass- 
ments, threatening absolute failure, pressed heavily on all en- 
gaged in its government, on all imparting or receiving instruction. 
Besides, the presidential ofiice bad been vacant for moi'e than a 
year, and during the preceding six years had been occupied by 
one who, with acknowledged learning and virtues, was deficient 
in the qualities requisite for its successful administration. But 
Willard was not to be deterred by obstacles, however formidable, 
in the way whither duty pointed. After mature and " prayerful 
consideration, weighing things on every side, and consulting the 
most judicious persons," he decided to enter on the task which 
he felt Providence had assigned him. With this view, he re- 
quested of the parish a dismissal from his pastoral relation to it, 
which, though with extreme reluctance, was granted ; and in 
December, 1781, he took public and affecting leave of his 
charge. 

In the new and wider sphere on which he at once entered, 
he soon proved himself the right man in the right place. His 
executive abilities were of a high order, which — I have the 
authority of the late Judge White, who was his pupil, and sub- 
sequently his associate in the college faculty, for saying — fitted 
him to fill even a wider sphere of duty than any to which he was 
called. The gentleman just alkided to, whom so many of us 
have been accustomed to respect and love, relates, in illustrating 
his readiness of resource and decision of character, that wlien, 
in the chapel, before an assembly of the officers and students, he 
had sentenced one of the latter to a punishment not the sever- 
est, who immediately broke out into language most disrespectful 
and rebellious, he calmly summoned the members of the govern- 
ment present around him, and, after a few moments' consulta- 
tion, with equal calmness subjected the offender to the highest 
collegiate penalty, — that of expulsion. His administration, like 
his character, had prominent features, and also traits in striking 
contrast with each other. Behind a veil of strict reserve were a 



59 

vein of humor and wit, and a keen relish for them. Dignified 
in aspeet, at times ahiiost stern, he was mild and benignant in 
spirit. Formal in manner, he was tender and loving at heart. 
Under a SAvay affectionate, and parental even, he exerted stead- 
ily the magnetism of a strong will. " Having been called," 
says Quincy, " to the president's chair in the midst of the Revo- 
lutionary war, when the general tone of morals was weak and 
the spirit of discipline enervated, he sustained the authority of 
his station with consummate steadfastness and prudence. He 
found the seminary embarrassed ; he left it fi'ee and prosperous. 
His influence Avas uniformly happy, and, throughout his whole 
connection with the institution, he enjoyed the entire confidence 
of his associates in the government, the respect of the students, 
and the undeviating approbation and support of the public." 

His death — which occurred in September, 1804, after some 
years of failing health, and which closed the longest term of 
service but one in the series of Harvard's Presidents, that 
of nearly twenty-three years — was the signal for wide-spread 
lamentation and profound regrets. But nowhere was the event 
more sincerely and deeply mourned, nowhere up to this day is 
he more reverently and gratefully remembered, than in this 
scene of his first and only ministry. Since the termination of 
that ministry, more than fourscore years have passed away ; 
but memorials are not wanting to keep fresh and fragrant among 
us the recollection of him who fulfilled it. The venerable 
mansion, still standing, in which he lived, in which centred his 
domestic joys and laborious studies ; the beautiful green before 
it, where he exercised at once body and mind, where he ob- 
served the courses of nature, watched the stars, their relative 
positions, the motions of the heavenly bodies whose orbits he 
delighted to follow and calculate; these streets he daily walked, 
these dwellings in which he was greeted as pastor and friend, 
this temple at whose altar he ministered in holy things ; this 
Bible now before me, which, rising superior to the narrow and 
anti-Episcopalian prejudices that had previously prevailed in 
this church and the Puritan churches generally, he caused to 
be procured for the public reading of the Scriptures in divine 



60 

service, and from which the lively and sacred oracles have for 
nearly a century been uttered in the hearing of the people here 
worshipping ; moreover, and best, the influence he exerted on 
those to whom he ministered, which has not ceased, and will not 
cease to be transmitted to their successors, — all these are 
present and living remembrancers of him, and through them, 
though a long time dead, he yet is with us. 

An interval of over three years occurred between the retire- 
ment of President Willard and the settlement of his successor, 
— produced perhaps partly by fastidiousness of taste, partly by 
differing predilections for individuals among the numerous can- 
didates employed and heard, partly also by growing diver- 
sities of theological sentiment, and probably in no small part 
from the unsettled state of affairs springing out of the war, 
and the consequences immediately following it. At length the 
choice fell on Joseph McKean, whom any religious society would 
have been fortunate in choosing and securing for its pastoral 
office, which having accepted he was ordained in May, 1785, — 
his honored predecessor preaching the ordination sermon from 
the text, " For God hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of 
power, and of love, and of a sound mind." And no words 
could have better delineated the chief elements in the charac- 
ter of both. Of McKean might it truly be said, that he had 
the sound mind in a sound body. He had what I esteem a 
decided advantage, — to have been brought up under the influ- 
ences of country life. "From his early youth he was strong 
and athletic, able to support fatigue and endure hardship ; and 
in his youth, and long after, excelled in all the manly exercises 
to which the active and hardy yeomanry of our country were 
then accustomed." A noted wrestler once, and as the ex- 
periment proved in all probability never again, called on him 
to test their relative strens^th and skill. The challeno-er was 
promptly conducted to a retired spot on the premises ; and the 
suddenness with which he was reduced from an erect to a 
reclining posture convinced him that the minister of this parish 
was not less competent to wrestle with flesh and blood, than with 
spiritual wickedness. His talents were solid, rather than bril- 



61 

liant, — discriminating judgment being a marked quality of his 
mind. Beyond his professional avocations, in Avhich he was 
well informed, diligent, and faithful, the exact sciences were 
favorite objects of his pursuit. Contributions on these were 
made by him to the Transactions of the American Academy, 
— which, together with a few occasional sermons, and the in- 
augural address at Brunswick, are his only publications. Of 
his printed discourses is one, which was delivered under pecu- 
liar circumstances, and produced an extensive and strong impres- 
sion. Its subject is, " Speaking Evil of Rulers." It was 
preached soon after Jefferson's accession to the Presidency, to 
an assembly, the mass of which, including the preacher him- 
self, was strenuously opposed to the new administration. It 
reproved calmly, but firmly and unsparingly, the lax and violent 
speech toward the powers that be, then prevalent and too com- 
mon at all times. Yet so mildly, so judiciously and effectively, 
was the rebuke conveyed, that, when heard, or widely as it was 
perused, it was generally acknowledged to be just and whole- 
some ; and, as we read it now, must be admitted not merely to 
have been specially adapted to that emergency, but to be of 
universal application. Mr. McKean was, in truth, remarkably 
sagacious in discerning the characters of men, and equally wise 
and skilful in dealing with them. Thus was he peculiarly fitted 
to guide and control the young men gathered in a seminary of 
learning such as that over which he was ultimately called to 
preside. Altogether, he possessed, by nature and acquired ex- 
cellence, a combination of gifts, which singularly qualified him 
for exerting a positive and extended influence. Imposing in 
stature and bearing, earnest in whatever he undertook, always 
frank, generous, and magnanimous, never compromising the 
dignity and decorum becoming a minister and a gentleman, con- 
descending and tender to the humble and lowest, the courteous 
and recognized peer of the most refined and exalted in rank or 
station, he secured to an uncommon degree the respect, affec- 
tion, and confidence of all with whom he came in contact, alike 
high and low, rich and poor, and of whatever condition. His 
advice was sought and relied on by persons of every class, in 



62 

matters secular and civil, as Avell as pertaining directly to his 
profession. He took an intelligent and active interest in the 
grand and stirring political events that were passing before him. 
The record of his name and co-operation stands conspicuous by 
the side of that of eminent leaders in important affairs of the 
town, the State, and nation. Nor was he more ready to impart 
of his wise counsel, than when occasion required to labor with 
his strong arms and hands. Thus, when the great cable for the 
now nobly historic frigate " Constitution " was in preparation 
here, and its speedy completion was very desirable, he volun- 
teered his valuable assistance in its manufacture ; so, and vari- 
ously otherwise, manifesting his own patriotic enthusiasm and 
devotion, and by his example kindling and keeping alive a corre- 
sponding flame in others' breasts. Possessing such characteristics 
as have been just described, he could hardly fail to be honored, 
influential, and beloved among his parishioners, his fellow- 
townsmen, and in the community wherever known. They emi- 
nently fitted him to be useful, acceptable, and ever-welcome, 
in performing the more retired duties of the pastoral office. In 
the pulpit he was solemn, devout, instructive, sustained, and 
impressive. His sermons were plain and practical, — intended 
not for display of learning or sensational effect, but to do good, 
to awaken and deepen moral and religious impressions, — yet 
often composed Avith careful elaboration. Having been born 
and brought up among the Scotch-Irish Presbyterians, who 
settled in Londonderry, New Hampshire, he had received and 
retained a tinge of Calvinistic associations, of which he may never 
have been rid. But he was far from obtruding them on the 
notice of his hearers ; and dwelt, and in public and private de- 
lighted to dwell, on the main fundamental principles and precepts 
of Christianity, that reach far down beyond any mere dogmas of 
man's invention or discovery. That he was no more than what 
vi^as termed a moderate Calvinist, is evidenced by the fact, that 
toward the close of his ministry measures were adopted for 
forming out of this a new society, — not on account of the over- 
grown state of the parish, which then in all probability was 
the largest in New England, numbering little if any less than 



63 

three thousand souls ; but ostensibly and avowedly because a 
sufficiently rigid standard of orthodoxy was not upheld in it, and 
by its minister. He ^yas indeed thoroughly and truly a liberal 
Christian, claiming for himself the unrestricted right to prove 
all things, to hold and utter what he believed to be true and 
good, and conceding to all men of all minds an equal right 
and title. 

After seventeen years' devoted service and usefulness here, 
with lasting mutual regrets, and friendships more enduring, he 
relinquished his pastoral relation, and assumed the duties, and 
trials too, of first President of Bowdoin College ; a position to 
which he was urgently called, for which his character and abili- 
ties peculiarly qualified him, and where they found ample scope 
for exercise. On this new sphere he entered with alacrity, and 
in the five short years allotted to him he accomplished much. 
Though summoned from earth in the midst of his days, being 
only in his fiftieth year when the summons came, he left behind 
him a rising and prosperous institution of learning, based on 
broad and secure foundations ; and now the taper he lighted 
upon it has become a burning and shining light in the East. 

The ministry last sketched fell, as I have intimated, on 
troubled times. True, there was no open and declared war, — 
always to be reckoned among the direst of evils and calamities. 
But there were heavy debts accumulated during the Revolution, 
onerous taxes consequent thereon, a currency depi*eciated almost 
to no value at all, commerce and business stagnant or in stark 
derangement; rebellion, even in staid Massachusetts, against the 
constituted authorities ; the confederation of States felt to be, what 
it has been aptly compared to, a rope of sand ; the framing and 
adoption of the Federal constitution of government ; the admin- 
istrations of Washington, and the elder Adams, and the incoming 
of Jefferson's ; interspersed with agitating questions and party 
conflicts at home, with threatening wars and jeopardized indepen- 
dence from abroad. All these difficulties and exigencies were 
met by members of this parish in a manner alike able and note- 
worthy. 

Without enumerating in detail the services thus rendered, I 

9 



64 

must be permitted to detain you for a few moments, in remark- 
ing the striking part performed by some of your own number, 
and another intimately connected with you, in the most mo- 
mentous issue ever presented to this nation ; being nothing less 
than the existence and indefinite extension of negro slavery in 
our land, or its total extirpation from it. To the lot of Nathan 
Dane, for more than a half century a consistent and devout 
member of this society, it fell, or rather he wisely and bravely 
assumed the responsibility, of taking the great initiatory step 
toward banishing that plague-spot on the body politic, that dark 
stain on our country's escutcheon, that foul disgrace and burning 
shame of our republican institutions. A native of the county 
town of Ipswich, a graduate witli high distinction at Harvard, 
he commenced and pursued through a prolonged life the profes- 
sion of his choice ; earning, by his diligence and abilities, the 
title — pronounced upon him by no less an authority than Judge 
Story — of Father of American Law, and, by his reputation and 
liberal endowments, leaving his name to designate the law school 
of the university in which he was trained, and to which, through 
a long life, he was warmly attached. Above all did he honor 
himself and dignify his profession, by being true, honest, just, 
and worthy, as a lawyer, not less than as a man and Christian. 
Instead of fostering litigation, as self-interest and professional 
bias might have seemed to prompt, he habitually and from prin- 
ciple discouraged it ; thus carrying out in spirit, and all the more 
effectively from the motives which would naturally have been 
supposed to lead him to a contrary course, the spirit of the rule 
adopted in the first Boston church within five years from its 
formation, that none shall sue till certain persons named " have 
had the hearing and deciding of the case, if they can." To his 
honorable and disinterested conduct in this regard have been 
ascribed, by those with the best opportunities of observing and 
judging it, the peculiar aversion to litigiousness, and compara- 
tively rare cases of contestants at court, among the population 
with which, as legal adviser and practitioner, he was more im- 
mediately connected. A man with character founded on such a 
basis, was not slow in being called by the suffrages of an intelli- 



65 

gent and patriotic constituency to public service, to assist in 
framing the laws he was so fitted to expound and apply. In 
1785, he was elected to the State legislature, in which he per- 
formed valuable service ; at least, this may be inferred from 
his being commissioned, the following year, a member of the old 
Congress. Scarcely had he taken his seat, when he was ad- 
vanced to a commanding position in that body. In the year 
178T, — that year ever memorable in the history of our country 
and his own fame, — he, as chairman of a committee, reported 
resolves for assembling at Philadelphia (that name symbolical of 
national as well as brotherly union) the convention that framed 
the Constitution of the United States ; and that same year he 
drafted and carried to its final passage the ordinance by which 
slavery was for ever banished from, and freedom secured to, the 
whole vast territory north-west of the Ohio River. Mingled 
with his various and engrossing occupations as a lawyer and 
statesman, together with necessary attention to his private affairs, 
were historical and theological investigations, for both of which 
he had a decided taste. The immense amount he accomplished, 
as a public man, a student, writer, and author, can be accounted 
for only by marvellous industry, combined with uncommon men- 
tal and physical powers. Through his long and laborious life, 
he was blessed with the sympathy, counsel, and active co-opera- 
tion of a wife whom, though childless, many of us remember as 
truly a mother in Israel; to whom, departing at a very advanced 
age, was specially due the scriptural eulogium, " She hath done 
what she could." She accompanied him, while a member of 
Congress, during some of its sessions. Often has it been my 
privilege to listen to vivid descriptions, by that venerable couple, 
of scenes of absorbing interest, witnessed by them at the seat of 
government, in the closing years of the old Confederation, and 
under the administration of Washington. 

But the singular felicity, the rare opportunity well and glo- 
riously improved, which the genius of our civil history will 
assign to Mr. Dane, consist in his having been the author of the 
Ordinance of '87, for the government of the North-western 
Territory. " We are accustomed," said Daniel Webster, in the 



66 

Senate, " to praise the lawgivers of antiquity ; we help to per- 
petuate the fame of Solon and Lycurgus : but I doubt whether 
one single law of any lawgiver, ancient or modern, has produced 
effects of more distinct, marked, and lasting character than the 
Ordinance of 1787." Its prohibition of involuntary servitude, 
resting on original compact, reaching deeper down than all local 
laws or constitutions, stamped on the virgin soil the enduring 
imprint of freedom, and barred it for ever from being trod by 
the feet of slaves. AVhere, I cannot but here ask, should we 
have been, where would our nation be now, if this seasonable 
provision had not been made ? How different, probably, would 
have been the result of the late tremendous civil war, had the 
great North-west been originally given over to slavery, and been 
in alliance with the slave power, instead of sending forth from 
her teeming millions hosts of brave men to fight the battles of 
liberty, — her Avorld-renowned generals, moreover, to conduct 
our armies to victorious triumph. 

Nathan Dane's is not the only voice from among you that has 
made itself heard and felt in the halls of Congress on this 
momentous subject. More than threescore years had passed, 
during which the evil, that the Ordinance was specially designed 
to forefend, grew steadily in magnitude and force ; became an 
object of serious alarm and conscientious horror to multitudes of 
true patriots, of devout and Christian men and Avomen ; caused 
Jefferson, from the midst of a slaveholding community, to ex- 
claim, " I tremble for my country, when I remember that God 
is just ; " had raised an agitation which was no ghost to " down 
at the bidding" of any man or body of men, but which, the more 
loudly and fiercely it was denounced, would be the more deter- 
minedly carried on, as relating to a mighty wrong, in the awful 
consequences of which not slaves only, but the whole people, 
shared, and for which a responsibility, moral, if not civil, — and 
by not a few taken in both lights, — was widely and intensely 
felt. It was felt to be, and was, a canker at the root, a cancer 
at the vitals, which had sent a subtle and deleterious influence 
through the veins and arteries, and was eating into the heart, of 
the nation. Yet it had its apologists, advocates, and supporters. 



67 

with a controlling agency at the seat of the national govern- 
ment, denianding its recognition as a general rather than sec- 
tional interest, — not only that the law for return of fugitive 
slaves should be rigidly executed in all the States, slave and 
free alike, but that masters should be at liberty to take their 
slaves into any part of the country, and in the territories espe- 
cially bring slavery into direct and full competition with free- 
dom. Moreover, there were not wanting those, and they were 
not few, who were ready to denounce and stigmatize with base 
aspersions, and visit with ostracism, any who boldly stood up for 
human rights and civil liberty against such monstrous and out- 
rageous assumptions. Personal safety was often risked and 
seriously endangered in the case of standard-bearers in free- 
dom's cause. Threats of life-peril were breathed against them, 
which were not always empty or unexecuted. 

It was in this juncture of political affairs, in this posture of 
our national concerns and interests, that Robert Eantoul, Jr., 
entered on his duties as a member of Congress. He had some- 
time before volunteered, amid severe reproach, not to say oblo- 
quy, and in spite of the prevailing sentiment, in the defence 
of a fugitive slave, whose rendition was claimed under the 
operation of the Fugitive-slave Law. That law he maintained 
was unconstitutional, and therefore by due legal process to be 
set aside and rendered inoperative. Whatever may be the con- 
clusions at which different minds might arrive on the point, it 
must be admitted that it was discussed by him with consummate 
ability. On that occasion he was associated with, and nobly 
sustained by, another of your attached and highly esteemed 
fellow-parishioners, Charles G. Loring, — whose presence, pre- 
vented by extreme illness, we sadly miss to-day, — whose pen, 
tongue, and purse, and talents and weight of character, have 
ever been forward to enlist in every good cause, and through 
our late public trials have rendered service of incalculable 
benefit. Mr. Rantoul's position having been thus clearly de- 
fined and well understood, he was early called on, after taking 
his seat in Congress, to defend that position. This he did with 
a frankness and power which, while delighting his friends, com- 



68 



manded the unfeigned respect and deference, admiration even, of 
his bitterest opponents. Listen to these earnest, searching, 
viewed in the light of recent events almost prophetic, utter- 
ances, which experience has proved wise and true, as they were 
brave, at the time they were delivered : — 

" Do the Southern gentlemen know what they are doing? Do they 
mean to throw the whole power over the subject of slavery into the 
hands of the Federal Government ? You do it here. Do gentlemen 
desire that two-thirds of the white men of the country, aye, a great 
many more than two-thirds very soon, . . . should take the subject of 
slavery into their hands, — to let it agitate, and agitate, and con- 
vulse the whole nation, until it shall finally be treated as it will be 
treated, if it becomes the fnel of a universal conflagration through 
this land. Let Southern gentlemen take warning in this matter. . . . 
It may result in civil war and anarchy. I say that is possible ; but 
in my opinion it is a mere possibiHty. But it is a possibility that 
prudent men ought to look at, because bad management may drive 
the chariot off the precipice, when, with the sHghtest degree of pru- 
dence and skill, the course would be perfectly safe. It may result 
in civil war, if badly managed indeed, without any sort of prudence. 
. . . Slavery will not last for ever, for the seeds of its death are 
within itself. Now almost the whole civilized world have got rid 
of it ; and that portion of the civilized world which still retains this 
institution, retains a temporary institution, and it must look about to 
see how, with the least inconvenience and sufteriug to itself, that 
temporary institution is to come to an end. That is the great ques- 
tion for Southern men ; and if it is to be pressed upon this govern- 
ment, — and I think it ought not to be, — then it is the great question 
for Northern men. . . . Agitation is not to be quieted by hard words. 
Hard words will have very little success on either side. This ques- 
tion of slavery can be quieted only in two ways. One way will be 
for the South to let it alone ; and then, if everybody at the North 
would let it alone, which no man can promise, it would be quieted. 
The other would be, to talk about it like reasonable men. Take it 
up as you take up any other great national interest, and try to get at 
the merits of it. When you do that, it will be then as quietly ap- 
proached and treated as any other subject ; and, by the blessing of 
Providence on your honest endeavors, a way will be found to pass 
through that transition of social system through which most of 



69 

the nations of Europe have passed within a comparatively recent 
period." 

When he who thus spoke had been stricken down by fatal 
disease, in the meridian of his powers and the full tide of their 
successful exertion, and the lips from which such eloquent and 
forcible words proceeded were sealed in the silence of death, 
his successor, Charles AV. Upham, did not hesitate to take up 
the gauntlet he had so courageously accepted and ably met, but 
which had fallen from his lifeless hand, and did battle with 
similar ability, courage, and sagacious foresight on the great, 
exciting topic ; which, though coming up under some variation 
of form, was still the same in substance, and in the intent and 
purpose for which the controversy was raised. It is very 
observable, that the two representatives of this district, belong- 
ing (I may on this occasion add) to this and the mother parish, 
should have coincided to the extent they did in the sentiments 
they held and uttered at that period, and in the distinguished part 
they bore in the war of words and ideas which preceded the im- 
pending conflict of arms. In the debate of 1854 in Congress, on 
the Kansas and Nebraska bill, Mr. Uphara said (and what has 
occurred since gives deep significance to the language then 
used) : — 

" I hold that this bill contemplates, and will if it becomes a law 
constitute, a radical and vital change in the policy on which the union 
of these States was originally formed, and by which its aiFairs have 
been administered throughout its entire history. It will be an aban- 
donment of the course that has been pursued from the first. The 
country will swing from her moorings, and we shall embark, with 
all the precious interests, all the glorious recollections, and all the 
magnificent prospects of this vast republican empire, upon an uu- 
traversed, unknown, and it may well be feared stormy, if not fatal, 
sea. Heretofore the South has profited by om* divisions. Those 
divisions have arisen, to a great degree, from the restraining and 
embarrassing influence of a sense of obligation on our part to adhere 
to the engagements and stand up to the bargains made by tlie fathers, 
and renewed, as I have shown, by each succeeding generation. But 
let those engagements be violated ; let tiiose bargains be broken by 
the South, on the ground of unconstitutionality, or any other jire- 



70 

tence, — from that hour the North becomes a unit and indivisible ; 
from that hour ' Northern men with Sonthern principles ' will dis- 
appear from the scene, and the race of dough-faces be extinct for ever. 
I do not threaten. I pretend to no gift of prophecy. Any man can 
interpret the gathering signs of the times. All can read the hand- 
writing on the wall. The very intimation that the Missouri Com- 
promise is proposed to be repealed by Southern votes, in defiance of 
the protest of four-fifths of the Northern representatives, has rallied 
the people of the free States as they have never been rallied before. 
Their simultaneous and indignant protests pour in upon your table, 
in petitions, resolutions, and remonstrances, without number and 
without end. They are repeated in popular assemblages, from the 
seashore to the Rocky Mountains ; and in the newspaper press of all 
parties, and all creeds, and all languages. You have united the 
free States at last, by this untimely, unprovoked, and astounding 
proposal. If you execute it by the passage of this bill, they wil Ibe 
united for ever in one unbroken, universal, and uncompromising 
resistance of the encroachments of the slave-power everywhei'e and 
at all points, whether north or south of 36' 30'. Their unalterable 
determination is heard over the whole breadth of the land, pro- 
claiming, in thunder tones, What has been pledged to freedom shall 
be free for ever. 

" If you paes the bill, or if it is defeated in spite of the combined 
Southern vote, there will be an end of all compromises. Some of 
them may remain in the letter of the Constitution, but it will be a 
dead letter ; their moral force will be gone for ever. The honorable 
member from South Carolina intimated that perhaps it would be well 
to abandon the policy of compromises, and for the two great conflict- 
ing interests to meet face to face, and end the matter at once. I have 
suggested the reasons why, heretofore, I have contemplated such an 
issue with reluctance. But if the South say so, so let it be." 

But I have trespassed too long on your patient listening, and 
must hasten to gather and present the events and thoughts 
which could not properly be omitted on the present occasion. 
They fall chiefly Avithin the compass of the passing century. 
The ministry of Abiel Abbot commenced in 1803. I hardly 
need sketch, or attempt to sketch it, — so familiar is it to many 
of you, fiithers and mothers, who have told it from your per- 
sonal experience, better far than by me it could be described 



71 

or narrated, to your cliildren. Born and bred under Christian 
influences, with a heart to receive and improve them, he may be 
said to have been a minister of rcHgion from and by birth ; even 
as the poet proverbially is born, not made, — nascitur, no7i Jit. 
His ministerial course here, as I have learned more and more 
of it, has seemed to me to picture an all but Elysian pastor's 
life. With the delights of an intellectual, refined, religious, 
and happy home ; a parish composed of great varieties in 
culture and social condition, -with all which he had the good 
sense and right feeling to be in cordial sympathy ; with ready 
and unfailing tact to adapt himself to all conditions and circum- 
stances, " his whole manner so informed with the grace of a 
kindly and persuasive wisdom ; " in his own or other pulpits 
always acceptable and welcome ; an acknowledged light, guide, 
and ornament of society ; regarded among his parishioners, 
townsmen, and the community the friend and pillar of learn- 
ing, virtue, and religion, — hov/ could his position be otherwise 
than most desirable, and, if envy might be supposed to intrude, 
be more enviable ? An instance of his readiness of resource at 
this moment occurs to me. When called to preach in a neigh- 
boring parish, where one of those unfortunate jars, which will 
sometimes occur in the best-regulated choirs, had happened, he 
found the singers' seats wholly vacated. After reading the 
hymn, he announced the tune, invited the congregation to join 
him in it, and led off in the singing, followed by such numbers and 
with such effect, that the choir, if only for fear that their occu- 
pation would be gone, concluded to return, change their discord 
to harmony, and take their usual part in the afternoon service. 
In Sprague's " Annals of the American Pulpit," that monument 
of industry, of talented and liberal research, it is mentioned by 
the author himself, that he was witness of the effort made by 
Abbot when the Consociation of Connecticut had his brother 
on trial and decided on deposing him ; and pronounces his man- 
agement of the case and final argument to rank among the 
best instances of knowledge of ecclesiastical law, and ability 
in its illustration and enforcement. No man could be, more 
sincerely and earnestly than he was, a lover of peace. Yet 

10 



72 

commotions, disturbing causes, and contests, neither few nor 
small, were embraced within the time of his ministry. During 
a portion of it, there was bitter strife between political parties : 
there was the embargo under Jefferson's, and the war with 
Great Britain under Madison's, Administration, — both of which 
bore very heavily on this commercial and seafaring population. 
Controversy on religious topics also broke out, and was pursued 
with great warmth and vigor, not to say violence. It arose 
naturally, inevitably, from radical differences of opinion among 
those whom we are bound to believe equally sincere and earnest 
followers of Christ and of God. If he of whom I am speaking, 
amid the din of theological disputation, were of the number 
who strove to hush it, and cried peace when there was no 
peace, it must be attributed in no small part to his peace-loving 
spirit, and furthermoi'e to a circumstance by no means to be 
left out of the account, — that a respectable minority of his 
parish, between whom and himself there existed strong per- 
sonal regard and attachment, differed from the great majority 
and from him, by being Trinitarian and Calvinistic. 

Above all was he a lover of the profession which, together 
with its objects, he had from his youth espoused, — which he 
adorned, in the discharge of the duties of which he delighted, 
and to which he gave his best energies. When, in the midst of 
his labors and usefulness, he was arrested by disease, and ad- 
monished to seek the restoring influence of a milder clime, 
among his last words before quitting — as the event proved for 
ever — his dearly loved home, were these, uttered to an intimate 
professional friend : " I believe the hour of my departure is 
at hand, — how near I cannot say ; but not far distant is the 
time when I shall be in the immediate presence of my Maker. 
This impression leads me to look back upon my life, and in- 
wardly upon my present state. In the review, I find many 
things to be humble and penitent for, and many things to fill me 
with gratitude and praise. I have, I trust, the testimony of my 
heart, that my life, my best powers, my time, and my efforts 
have, in the main, been sincerely given to God and mankind." 
His publications consist of two volumes of sermons, a catechism. 



73 

several occasional discourses, and a posthumous volume of letters 
from Cuba ; which last, written under fiiiling health, addressed 
to the endeared members of his ftiraily household, pervaded by 
love and correct appreciation of the beautiful and true in nature 
or human character, showing careful observation and nice dis- 
crimination between the good and bad, and devout recognition, 
throughout, of the God over all and in all, — so altogether 
genial, affectionate, pious, and delectable, that it has struck me, 
as I doubt not it has some of you, — like the notes attributed to 
the dying swan, — as among the sweetest and best of his produc- 
tions. 

It was during his pastorship that the first Sunday school, as 
that institution now exists and is conducted, was founded in 
connection with this parish. This M'as in 1810, nearly sixty 
years ago. Two young ladies. Misses Prince and Hill, com- 
menced the good work by collecting, on the sabbath, poor and 
neglected children, to whom they imparted religious instruction, 
and whom at least they hoped and helped to rescue from temp- 
tation and harm. In this good enterprise they I'eceived the 
cordial co-operation of the pastor and other influential friends. 
So interesting and attractive did they make it, and so popular 
did it quickly become, that the more, not less than the least, 
favored children and youths gladly came forward to partake of 
its benefits ; and it soon grew to be an adopted and favorite 
foster-child of the parish. Within a few years, the example 
thus afforded was copied into neighboring societies ; and now, 
in not much more than half a century, has come to be univer- 
sally established, and to be regarded, next to the church, a 
mighty lever with which to move the world. We, who are or 
have been inhabitants of this town, have been accustomed, not 
without some show of reason, to pride ourselves on several first 
things that are interwoven with its history. The first vessel, 
which, at the commencement of the Revolution, unfurled the 
Continental flag, and went forth, in defiance of British domina- 
tion, to brave the mistress of the seas, sailed hence. Here the 
infant American navy was born and cradled ; William Bartlett, 
after whom one of your pleasantest streets is named, having 



74 

been the first commissioned navy agent. Here the first cotton- 
factory in America was established. Here, too, was organized 
the first lyceum for debate and lectures, which, in some form or 
another, has spread through the length and breadth of the land. 
But who of us — certainly not I — will question, that the best 
first, or first best, whichever way you may please to put it, on 
which we congratulate ourselves and each other, is — when 
viewed in all its aspects and bearings on society and the hviman 
soul — the parish Sunday school? Of this parent school, Kob- 
ert Rantoul, so well known and highly esteemed in church and 
State, — who long, from experience and acknowledged ability, 
wielded an influence second to that of few, if any, in our State ; 
and whose name, by the offices he filled and the services he ren- 
dered in this church and parish, must ever be identified with 
them, — was the first superintendent, and always the ardent and 
consistent supporter. Nothing could be more characteristic of 
the unflagging interest he felt in its objects, and of the spirit 
of the man, than the following entry in his diary, occasioned by 
a recent attendance at a sabbath- school convention : — 

" The occasion has been one of healthful excitement and enjoy- 
ment to me. The more than thirty years that I was connected with 
the Sunday school in this parish, give an example of perseverance in 
an attempt to do good, however numerous were my shortcomings, 
that may have its just influence with some others to induce them to 
hold out and hold on, although the good result of their labors may 
not be very apparent. Progress, if slow but certain, will viltimately 
confer its own best reward, in the reflection that we have tried to do 
good, and that we have persevered in our best endeavors as long as 
circumstances would justify it. My resolutions are strengthened by 
this occasion." 

And this was written at or near the close of his seventy-eighth 
year. 

Here I must pause. It would ill become me to speak of the 
ministry which succeeded that of the revered Abbot. For you, 
and not for me, is it to say how far you were harmonized in 
doctrine, established in sacred and everlasting truth, led to the 
observance of the commandments and ordinances ; how far, in 



75 

short, under it and by it the great ends of religion have been 
answered ; namely, the upholding and extending of good insti- 
tutions, the promotion of piety and pure morals, of universal 
reform and progress. It will always be to me a pleasant and 
precious memory, that the sacred trust, which for more than a 
quarter of a century you reposed in me, was given back with — 
so far as I know or have heard — no mutual censures or re- 
proach, but in entire reciprocal concord. Whatever may have 
been my deficiencies or failures in duty and usefulness, I ac- 
knowledge with unfeigned sensibility the candid construction 
and kind judgment you have uniformly hitherto extended to 
them in my liietime ; not doubting, moreover, that, when I 
am gone, those of you who shall survive me will tread lightly 
on my ashes, and tenderly guard — it may be, cherish — my 
memory. 

What my successor has accomplished and may expect to 
accomplish, what may be hoped by, for, and of him, in the con- 
secrated relation you and he sustain, it might be unseemly in 
me, before his and your presence, to declare or predict. Still, 
I will not forbear congratulating him and yourselves on this 
society's present condition and prospects ; on its union, firmness, 
and zeal in maintaining what I regard, and from the first advo- 
cated among you, as the most pure and the best form and doc- 
trine of Christianity yet attained, — those of Unitarianism ; and 
now, especially, on the spirit exhibited in the renovated and 
beautified aspect of this temple ; trusting, at the same time, that 
you and he will be ever mindful, that the most beauteous and 
holy of temples on earth is the purified and sanctified soul of 
man, infinitely exceeding in grandeur and beauty all gracefully 
turned and lofty arches, all frescoed walls, or material splendor. 

We have dwelt much and long, and with, I hope, a pardon- 
able exultation, on the labors and worth of them who have pre- 
ceded us. Of our worthy predecessors we may well exclaim, 
keeping in view also the uncertainties that cast their shadow on 
all human life and experience, — 

" 'Tis well with tliem. 
But who knows what the coming hour, 
Veiled in thick darkness, brings for us ? " 



76 

Amid all shades, however, of uncei'tainty and vicissitude that 
may surround the path before us, we should rejoice that duty 
only is ours, and that events are with God alone. Let us work 
while the day of life lasts, be it longer or shorter, in well-doing 
as universal and thorough as may be in our power. Never 
before, in all the series of ages past, was such a plane afforded 
for human exertion. Earth and the heavens are all aglow with 
the light of new discoveries, new means of physical, intellectual, 
moral, and religious improvement, — with ideas, old and new, 
of truth, liberty, justice, love, holiness, and heaven. What bet- 
ter counsel could I, in addressing you of this society collectively, 
for possibly — I had almost said probably — the last time, leave 
with you or take to myself, than that we should be faithful to 
our great trusts, seize the moments of precious privilege as they 
fly, and improve to the utmost our golden opportunity for the 
soul's enlargement and elevation, for being and doing good, and 
so securing for ourselves and many others — how many eternity 
only can reveal — real and highest felicity ? If only we are true 
to our high vocation, our sacred obligations, and vast opportuni- 
ties, act well the sublime part Providence has assigned to us of 
this generation, we shall live honored and die lamented ; we 
shall constitute a not inglorious link between the past and com- 
ing centuries ; our spirit shall be difl"used in good influences 
through the ages that are to come ; and future generations will 
rise up and call us blessed. 



ORDER OF EXERCISES 



TWO-HUNDREDTH ANNIYERSARY 



^arisb, Icbcrln. 



VOLUNTAEY AND CHORAL. 

— * — 

INTRODUCTORY PRAYER. 

— ♦ — 

ANTHEM. 

-4 

SELECTIONS FROM THE BIBLE. 



ORIGINAL HYMN. 

Give glory to the Holy One, 
Wlio dwelleth not in heaven alone. 
Nor scorneth humble work well done. 
Though high exalted is His throne ; 
To Him our hearts would still upraise 
A church, a monument of praise. 

Defying time, despite all change, 

And grateful as the dew to flowers, 

The records of His mercy range 

O'er all the varied, fleeting hours. 

While felt His might and owned His sway, 

Two hundred years have passed away. 



78 

What are we, who so long have known 

A habitation and a name '? 

One meek and lowly guide we own, 

" One God, one faith, one baptism" claim. 

We gratefully the past review ; 

Our God is love, and ever true. 



Mary E. Woksley. 



PRAYER. 



ORIGINAL HYMN. 

■ Lo, I am with you alway even to the end." — Matt, xxviii. 20. 

E'en to the end, the Master said, 

I will be with you ; and to-day 
The Church responds to her great Head, 

Thou hast been with us. Lord, — alway. 

Alway — through these two hundred years, 

Alway — upon this holy ground 
Made sacred by the feet of saints, 

Who their eternal rest have found. 

Alway — to keep undimmed the faith, 
The blessed faith we have in thee, 

Alway — to make its lieaven-born truth 
More broad, more beautiful, and free. 

Through time and change, through life and death, 

We still upon thy promise stand. 
Strong in Thy strength, as stood of yore 

The fathers of our sainted band. 

Like them, we seek to wash our robes ; 

Like them, to do our Master's will. 
God grant us faith and hope and love, 

And Thy abiding presence still. 



Emily 0. Kimball. 



HISTORICAL ADDRESS, 

By Eev. C. T. Thayek, of Boston. 



DOXOLOGY. 

•From all that dwell beloav the skies. 



BENEDICTION. 



79 

After the services at the Church, an elegant and sumptuous dinner, at which 
Dr. W. C. BoYDEN pi-esided, was served at the Town Hall ; and the festivities 
of the occasion were continued with animated and interesting remarks by various 
gentlemen of the Parish and from abroad, singing by the choir, and the reading 
of a poem. 

Tlie following original Hymn was sung in tlie course of the afternoon ; — 

The sea made music to the shore 

Two hundred years ago ; 
To weary pilgrim ears it bore 

A prelude deep and low. 

They gathered, in the Autumn calm, 

To their new house of prayer, 
^Vnd softly rose their Sabbath psalm, 

A blessing on the air. 

The ocean took the echo up ; 

It rang through every tree ; 
And praise, as from an incense cup. 

Filled earth and sky and sea. 

They linger yet upon the breeze, 

The hymns our fathers sung ; 
They rustle in tlie wayside trees, 

And give each leaf a tongue. 

Tlie murmuring sea is burdened yet 

With music's mighty pain ; 
No fitting chorus men have set 

To that great organ-strain. 

When human liearts are tuned to Thine, 

Whose voice is in the sea, 
Life's moaning waves a song divine 

Shall swell, God, to Thee ! 

Lucy Lahcom. 



11 



m 



MR. THAYER'S 



BI-CENTENNIAL ADDRESS. 



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